Alcatel-Lucent is planning to farm out its operations of IT (information technology), worth over billions of euros, to large international enterprises, such as IBM and HP; while the firm is likely to contract Taiwanese suppliers to make CPEs, as they are seen as better than their Chinese counterparts in R&D.

 

Alcatel-Lucent has been actively looking for contract suppliers across Taiwan and China for different products starting this year, with the cooperation details to be confirmed in the next few months, depending on product categories.

 

In fact, the firm has already outsourced some low-end CPE, including related products for broadband and WiMAX (worldwide interoperability for microwave access) access, network switchers, power amplifiers, etc., with Taiwanese contract suppliers, including Asustek Computer Inc., Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd., Zyxel Communications Corp., Accton Technology Corp., Tecom Co. and Microelectronics Technology Inc.

 

Industry insiders indicated that Alcatel-Lucent is expected to further farm out production of MDU (multi dwelling units), remote DSLAM (digital subscriber line access multiplexer), and VDSL (very high speed digital subscriber line) switches, with Zyxel and Accton very likely to win the bids.