Alcatel and Lucent merged three years ago

Alcatel and Lucent merged three years ago. When you got the call-up a year ago, you did not have the feeling that the company was fully integrated. And today

Three days ago, members of the Board of Directors met for a dinner in honour of the two new Nobel Prize in physics from the Bell Labs (ex-Lucent). Two men, forty years ago, seeking a way to make the videophone. Their work helped to build giant telescopes with which it proves the existence of black holes and, above all, to put cameras in mobile phones around the world! Alcatel-Lucent is the only group that I know from 13 Nobel. This means that there is here enough talent and brains to make a difference. So we can certainly talk about the culture shock of the merger, painful transformations. But the reality of Alcatel-Lucent, it is this enormous potential for creativity and innovation. The rest is just a history of organization. So stop looking backwards.

It is difficult to plan for the future while Alcatel-Lucent has not still registered profit since its inception...

Look at the figures for this quarter. We have said since the beginning of the year that the market would be 8 to 12 decline in our sector in 2009. Despite this difficult situation, we sell more products and solutions of new generation. This is what is important. In the mobile: CDMA technology fell by 17, GSM of 51, but the third-generation W-CDMA jumps 45 - this is the best quarter Alcatel-Lucent has never lived in the area. In the mobile telephony of fourth generation, or LTE, we participate or conduct 16 pilot projects: it is very difficult to find experiments which we do not participate in the world!

Finally, in all-IP Internet communication technology networks, we have signed with 22 service providers on 30 with, while three years ago we were nothing. We are proud in particular for doing business with the Japanese operator NTT DoCoMo, which is one of the most demanding.

You took the direction of the company in September 2008. What balance do you

First, Alcatel-Lucent generated a stream of free cash flow of 362 million, which is quite rare for a third quarter. This happen of course in the fourth quarter. It is a huge change. This means that we find the control of operations, which was one of the major concerns since the merger. Other satisfaction: we have the choice of products for the future. Finally, the will to win is back. I will quote the Arsenal boss, which is my model of manager: "Do set never your strategy with that of your opponents."A year ago, in the locker room, it would have said: "OK, has been a good game." It lost only from 0 to 1. "Now it is finished. It should more be losses. We have enough great players, a good bench, we have no reason to lose the match.

Do you plan to assign new activities after the sale of your 20 in Thales

We announced in enough. It must now focus on execution, improve processes.

Will cost reductions continue next year

I hope to continue to reduce costs, but different, more intelligent manner rather than with plans for massive departure of employees. How Increase the speed of execution, improve the structure of the costs of our products, by continuing to remove silos, empowering management, work in a team.

You have defined a strategic priority: sell operators services and software that will enable them to take a part of the added value of the new uses of the Internet, such as video or social networks. Where are you

Applications of operators activity has grown by more than 30 in the third quarter: customers reserved an excellent home for our strategy of implementation of applications on their network, which for example allows them to become players in the advertising market digital or to manage priority traffic. Our strategy of integration of equipment, software and services made its way. If it is the job of everyone in a Word, it would be "mobility" for Ericsson, "IP" for Cisco, "Transformation" for Alcatel-Lucent and Huawei "cost". We transform our customers in fixed and mobile broadband player, so that, ultimately, the consumer can have the same comfort of use of the Internet with the phone in the Palm of his hand on his computer!