Lucent Technologies is looking for a buyer for its enterprise professional services unit, the last step the company needs to take in its exit from the enterprise market for networking technologies and services.
The services organization, formerly INS before Lucent acquired in late in 1999, is now on the block, and Lucent hopes to find a buyer by the end of the year, according to a Lucent spokesman, in Murray Hill, NJ.
The move, part of Lucents ongoing reorganization, is intended to allow Lucent to focus on more strategic service provider customers.
Some 1,400 service employees in the unit will be affected. Lucent will transfer another 500 engineers back into its service provider-focused Lucent Worldwide Service Group. That unit includes about 24,000 employees doing everything from high-end engineering and design work to pulling cables. Last year that unit generated $4.2 billion in revenue, with the enterprise group contributing a small percentage of that.
INS was acquired in October, 1999, in a $3.7 billion stock merger.
“We havent been in the enterprise space since we spun off Avaya [13 months ago],” said the spokesman.
He would not confirm whether Lucent has begun negotiations with any potential buyers.