Another Business School Trophy

[tw]

In previous discussions, defined was a fundamental difference between basic research and fundamental research.
Wanted: A Gravedigger for NASA? and
Fundamental basis of an Ecomonic boom

Lucent sale would be one last bummer
News that Alcatel SA may acquire Lucent Technologies Inc. for no premium on its stock price could well represent one final jab in the eye for long-time investors in Lucent, one of America's most widely held stocks

Lucent is the Bell Labs. An organization that was converted by MBAs in Lucent (and previously by AT&T) from doing fundamental research (that created so many Nobel prize science) to application research. As a result, Lucent Technology is so anti-innnovative that a French company - Alcatel - may now own the Bell Labs.

Where ever MBA managers control innovation and use spread sheet mentality to 'optimize' that innovation, well that is what Fiorina and Young were doing to HP. Akers and Cannavino in IBM. Its what happened to innovation in big steel and in General Motors. Principles taught in the business schools so destroyed innovation in the Bell Labs that what remains may soon become French. Good for the French. Maybe they will kick out the disease in the Bell Labs - business school graduates. Maybe then Alcatel in 10 to 30 years can revive innovative fundamental research in Bell Labs.

Don't count on it. First they must destroy the labs - massive removal of the disease. Then restore what made the labs so productive. Easier to just let Lucent go bankrupt while new companies develop laboratories that innovate.