Bell Labs parent merges into communications giant

Bell Labs is a mere shadow of its former fabled glory. But it is still home to excellent research, so what does the 1 December acquisition of Lucent Technologies, its parent company, by Alcatel augur for Bell? Will there be layoffs? An increased emphasis on directed research? A boost for basic research? “People have been through a lot in the last few years,” says Art Ramirez, a materials physicist and director of device physics research at Bell. “I think there’s a wait-and-see attitude.”

Today the remnants of the physical sciences team that built Bell Labs’s Nobel Prize–studded reputation number around 100 researchers, down from perhaps 400—and some estimates put the earlier high at twice that. The full Bell Labs, which includes research, technology development, and commercialization, has 650–700 employees. Alcatel’s research and innovation counterpart is of comparable size, with a more applied emphasis. Although they are in close contact, the two research arms will remain separate, at least to begin with, says Bell Labs president Jeong Kim.

The combined Alcatel-Lucent communications giant has some 88 000 employees. The company has said that over the next three years it will cut about 10% of its global workforce. In addition, because Alcatel-Lucent is French owned, a subsidiary, LGS, has been formed to do contract work for the US government. Of LGS’s 500 or so employees, the number who do physical sciences research and development is “much bigger than dozens,” says David Bishop, a longtime Bell physicist who now heads LGS operations and technology. “Scientific results and opportunities generated in Bell Laboratories can flow pretty much freely into LGS,” he says, “but what can flow back is controlled.” With LGS and Bell Labs collocated, he adds, “there are hundreds of ways people can interact.” Some scientists are skeptical, however. “I at times did classified research in parallel with my unclassified activities, and most of my colleagues never knew or cared what was going on,” says one Bell veteran. With the subsidiary split off from the parent company, he adds, “they won’t be able to easily bring people in from research to do consulting and knowledge sharing.”

The Bell brand

“What I enjoyed about the years I was [at Bell] was the electric atmosphere, the can-do attitude. I am reminded of it when I visit Google,” says Anthony Tyson, an astrophysicist who 2 years ago moved to the University of California, Davis, after 37 years at Bell Labs. Bell Labs produced the science it did because it was owned by a monopoly, says Tyson. After the government broke up AT&T in 1984, he adds, Bell Labs has “been going downhill continuously with time.”

Basic research in physical sciences at Bell Labs is now “small potatoes,” says Louis Brus, a chemist at Columbia University who was previously at Bell. “It’s not a significant factor in the success or failure of the company—it’s irrelevant.” But, he adds, “Bell Labs will not vanish. It will be a valuable trade name.”

Indeed, says spokesman Peter Benedict, “We still value and promote the Bell Labs brand.” The Bell Labs tag line was dropped from the company’s new logo, he says, because having three company names—Alcatel, Lucent, and Bell Labs—“would have been confusing to the reader.” Others, though, point to such changes as signs that the merged company values Bell Labs less: “ ‘Bell Labs Innovations’ seems to have disappeared—from the logo, from the website, from the letterhead,” says the Bell Labs scientist who did classified and unclassified research. “And when the merger occurred [in December], there was not the ballyhoo about Bell Labs and the importance for the company that was made in the 1996 spinoff of Lucent [Technologies from AT&T].”

Perhaps not surprisingly, researchers who remain at Bell Labs paint a rosier picture. “It isn’t the way it used to be,” admits Rod Alferness, who came to Bell Labs in 1976 and now heads research. “But there continues to be vibrant and robust research activity in areas that are important in the communications industry and at the more fundamental levels in order to get there. I think there is a great deal of excitement with our researchers about the potential to have impact on industry and ultimately on society.” Adds Bishop, “We certainly do a lot less semiconductor physics than we used to. But we are spending more time developing advanced mathematical algorithms. Research interests evolve and change because the company and customers evolve and change.” Current research areas at Bell Labs include microelectromechanical systems, nanoscience, materials science, and high-speed electronics.

At least initially following the merger, “there is no real change” for physical sciences research, says Ramirez. He notes that a few years ago, when Lucent’s stock was down—and he himself was at Los Alamos National Laboratory—the company was still letting researchers buy helium. “Even when [the company was] losing money, people were making two-dimensional electron gases, new materials, molecular electronics.” The larger, merged company, Ramirez says, “makes components in addition to the things that Lucent did—networking and optical communications. That gives us an additional outlet. Research scales with revenue. In that vein, it’s better to be part of a bigger company.”

A fine line

If the company is successful, it “will give us more flexibility, more money for fundamental research,” says Kim. “I am passionate about trying to protect fundamental research. But at the same time, I want to make sure we do this by making a difference for the company. It’s a fine line to walk.”

“One of the important contributions of AT&T and the early Lucent, and IBM and others, was that research got published in the open literature,” says the New Jersey Institute of Technology’s Louis Lanzerotti, who used to work at and still consults for Bell Labs. “When you have fewer publications from industry, other physicists don’t know what are deemed to be the important problems. That’s not good for physics, for the country, or for the world.” Stan Williams, director of quantum science research at Hewlett-Packard, agrees that the decline of basic research at Bell Labs and other companies is unfortunate: “I have been so disheartened by the whole thing. I view it as a great American tragedy.”