Recent bad news from Lucent Technologies has employees and analysts thinking about the possible need for big changes at the company. Should Lucent overhaul its product portfolio or its management team or both?

Over at Nortel Networks, the new CEO is replacing top executives with transplants from General Electric, his own former outfit. Some would no doubt welcome similar changes at Lucent. Ironically, Lucent's CEO, Pat Russo, has been regarded by some as a reformer, an injection of "new blood," even though she helped found Lucent in 1996, having been with its previous incarnation, AT&T, since 1981. She came to Lucent's top slot from the outside, after serving as chief operating officer at Eastman Kodak. Since then, she certainly hasn't been shy with the axe. But although she brought Lucent back to profitability, those profits are now tenuous, and three years after she came to power, Lucent is still struggling.

Russo's IP multimedia subsystem (IMS) strategy is a bold one, but it isn't expected to make much of an impact for the next year or so. And as the recent Telephony article "Looking for product fat at Lucent" points out, the IMS strategy might make it hard for Lucent to cut back in other areas. Perhaps Russo just wants to wait out the next 12 perilous months until IMS takes off. But for Lucent employees, who have already suffered through a lot, it will be a long 12 months.

E-mail me at EGubbins@prismb2b.com.