Alcatel-Lucent seeks partner here

By Kim Yoo-chul

BARCELONA, Spain — Alcatel-Lucent said it plans to collaborate with small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Korea for national emergency communication networks based on long-term evolution (LTE) mobile wireless technology.

“We will partner with Korean SMEs. Alcatel-Lucent is working very closely with the Korean government, government offices, private companies and the military,” CEO Michel Combes said in an interview with The Korea Times at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, last week.

Korea plans to spend as much as 1.7 trillion won by 2017 on the project, which will exclusively use LTE technology to improve emergency services response to disasters.

Alcatel-Lucent will be competing with Samsung Electronics, Huawei of China and other potential bidders.

Combes said he is pushing the French telecom network gear maker to further diversify its customer base by selling Internet equipment to big technology companies and multinational firms because the company needs new projects and new plans for 2016.

Combes talked about the firm’s proven track record of winning similar deals in more than 40 countries including the United States, United Kingdom, France and Germany, which he said will help it be more competitive than rival firms.

“New challenges are how to move the LTE type of experience. That’s what we are working on next,” Combes said.

He hinted of transferring some of its core technology to Korean SMEs in accordance with an ongoing drive by Seoul for shared growth between large companies and SMEs.

"We develop features and applications customized to suit the specific needs of the Korean Public Safety Network. Already, we showed this through a live-demo at our seminar held in Seoul recently in cooperation with Korean SMEs," said the CEO.

Referring to its recently-launched global consortium called "ngConnect," Combes said Alcatel-Lucent is also planning to implement this initiative in order to create a new ecosystem with Korean companies.

Combes has 10 months left of his three-year restructuring project to make the Paris-headquartered firm profitable and generate a more positive cash flow.

Samsung Electronics has been persuading the government to help the Korean technology giant win the deal, so is thought to have an advantage.

Combes declined comment about main threats that the company should address.

Seoul decided to establish strengthened public emergency safety systems in the wake of the Sewol fery disaster that left more than 300 people dead.