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Technology Stocks : Alcatel (ALA) and France -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mike K who wrote (474)	3/3/1999 10:19:00 AM
From: Steve Fancy	Respond to of 3891

ANALYSIS-Alcatel (SBF:CGEP) gets back on the attack ReutersPlus, Wednesday, March 03, 1999 at 05:59 By Marcel Michelson PARIS, March 3 (Reuters) - Alcatel Chairman Serge Tchuruk is putting together the pieces in his strategic puzzle and returning to the offensive after a bad spell last year when his credibility was on the line. With a $2.0 billion cash bid for Xylan Corp (NYSE:XYLN) unveiled on Tuesday and a smaller Internet acquisition on the cards, the company is about to fill a void that could have cost it dear -- Internet protocol switching. While famed for its research and proud of its voice telephony switches, Alcatel was slipping behind in the race to harness the explosive growth in the Internet market where traditional telecommunications and data operations are converging. Traditional rivals such as Ericsson (SWED:LME.B) of Sweden or Germany's Siemens (FSE:SIEG) were also on the slow lane, but North American leaders Lucent (NYSE:LU) and Northern Telecom (TSE:NLT) were roaring ahead. Just last September Tchuruk was under the gun, forced to reassure angry investors after the company issued a profit warning that caused the share price to slide 40 percent. Alcatel had just boosted its presence in the United States with the $4.4 billion paper purchase of DSC Communications and created Alcatel USA Inc to attack the big North American market. But Northern Telecoms splashed out $9.1 billion for Bay Networks and obtained a firm anchorage in the Internet market. Lucent earlier this year paid $20 billion for Ascend Communications, assuring its position in the Internet protocol technology market while at the same time snatching an Alcatel ally. That set analysts and newspapers wondering how Alcatel could stay in the race, and investors were getting impatient. When Tchuruk announced Alcatel's preliminary results in late January, showing a 10.2 percent increase in operating income, in line with revised market expectations, the share slipped on some disappointment there was not a big Internet deal. But investors should get their fill this month. "There are a lot of things happening at the same time," Tchuruk said. When he arrived at Alcatel in 1995 from oil group Total SA (SBF:TOTF), the group was a conglomerate with a number of telecoms subsidiaries. After pruning some units and acquiring others, Alcatel now has a clear focus. The company floated the Alstom engineering joint-venture with Britain's GEC Plc (ISEL:GECL), merged its defence activities into Thomson-CSF (SBF:TCFP) and is seeking a deal for its 40 percent stake in nuclear engineering group Framatome (SBF:SOUR). Where the old Alcatel was preferred supplier to France Telecom (SBF:FTE), Deutsche Telekom (FSE:DTEG) and other former monopoly operators, the new company is also aggressively courting newer operators. For Alcatel, the telecommunications market can be divided into three. The first segment is new operators -- Internet service providers and competitive local exchange carriers as well as the data divisions of traditional operators. These will be entirely based on Internet protocol. A second is for operators with existing infrastructure, where there will be increasing convergence between voice and data, combining narrow bandwith with the Internet. Alcatel has high hopes its ASDL techology can be a winner here. A third is the enterprise market. While companies now have separate voice systems and computer systems, these will increasingly be combined into a single local area network. The Xylan purchase fits into this third market. Founded in 1993, it makes switches, chips and software capable of sending data between computers at high speeds and has helped lead an assault on the sprawling voice networks run by telecoms giants. The value of data networks became clear last year when data traffic on the information highway overtook voice traffic and companies like Xylan have seen sales soar. Alcatel was already a key Xylan customer and accounts for a significant portion of the U.S. firm's business. e-mail paris.newsroom@reuters.com)) Copyright 1999, Reuters News Service

To: Mike K who wrote (474)	3/3/1999 10:22:00 AM
From: Steve Fancy	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3891

Alcatel Forms Partnership With Dialogic to Develop Integrated Communications Server; Supporting Telephony, Internet Access, Computer Applications -- All on one open Platform BusinessWire, Wednesday, March 03, 1999 at 09:08 LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 3, 1999--Alcatel, a global innovator in communications systems, and Dialogic Corporation, the global leader in open computer telephony, today announced that they have entered a partnership to develop a new standards-based hardware-and-software convergence platform to be offered by Alcatel later this year. The new communication platform is designed to meet all the communications requirements of small-to-medium-size companies. Drawing upon its strong heritage in developing telecom systems for enterprises, Alcatel will develop a new communications server -- an open, standards-based solution that will integrate telephony, computer applications and Internet access onto one easy-to-administer, cost-effective platform. Under this alliance, Alcatel will work with Dialogic to develop key elements of the Dialogic CT Server hardware architecture and CT Media resource management software for use in the communications server, which Alcatel will market on a worldwide basis, including the U.S. "The innovative CT Media software from Dialogic is the ideal software platform for Alcatel as we develop our communications server, which will provide a truly integrated communications platform for smaller companies -- representing the fastest growing segment of the worldwide economy," said Patrick Liot, president of Alcatel's Professional and Consumer Division in Paris. "Dialogic and Alcatel have established an excellent partnership that we're confident will provide an innovative solution for end-users." "Alcatel is a pioneering leader in communications," said Howard Bubb, president and CEO of Dialogic. "Dialogic is pleased to have been selected as a partner and a key technology provider in the creation of their new communication server, which is a unique convergent platform that uses open systems standards to meet the needs of small to medium businesses." Liot noted that because most small, entrepreneurial companies typically do not have an extensive legacy-based communications infrastructure, they can realize significant cost advantages and roll out new applications quickly by moving to an integrated communications server. Standard-Based Central Resource For end users, an open communications server will provide the benefits of a shared, standards-based central resource that manages all aspects of a company's communications -- voicemail, Interactive Voice Response (IVR), fax, Automated Call Distribution (ACD) as well as Web access and e-mail -- and which supports various CTI applications. Distributors, Value-Added Resellers (VARs) and systems integrators will benefit from being able to provide custom-tailored applications for this open platform, enabling them to create and sell a genuine "value add" solution -- and allowing them to move into a profitable market previously served mainly by PBX and telecom VARs and integrators. A world leader in telecommunications systems, as well as related cable and components activities, Alcatel has 118,000 employees and operates in over 130 countries. Alcatel provides complete solutions and services to operators, service providers, enterprises and consumer, ranging from backbone networks to user terminals. For more information, visit Alcatel on internet: alcatel.com or the US web site at usa.alcatel.com. Contact for Alcatel Investor Relations, (US) Michael Haase, 972/519-6855, michael.a.haase@usa.alcatel.com. Dialogic, the global leader in open computer telephony, provides the critical building blocks and technical services that enable partners to develop solutions for the converging voice and data networks. Dialogic products are used in voice, fax, data call center management and Internet protocol (IP) telephony applications in both consumer premise equipment (CPE) and public network environments. The company is headquartered in Parsippany, New Jersey, with regional headquarters in Tokyo, Brussels and Buenos Aires, and sales offices worldwide. For more information, visit our web site at ctserver.dialogic.com. CONTACT: Alcatel USA Mark Burnworth, 972/519-5168 mark_a_burnworth@aud.alcatel.com or Dialogic Corporation Jane Mazur, 973/993-3000, ext 6118 J.Mazur@dialogic.com