A quick summary of the telecom equipment sector. -- Hoover’s Business Insight Zone

Alcatel-Lucent: no synergies, no benefit from last year’s merger, and no end of troubles — with no end in sight.

I was just talking with my colleague Josh Lower, who has covered the telecom equipment sector for us for a long time, about the challenges that Nortel faces. He jokingly said that one of their biggest advantages is that they’re not Alcatel-Lucent.

That poor company — it’s to the point that you almost pity them — has lost more than a third of its market capitalization since Alcatel and Lucent merged late last year. Fair or not, much of that record of failure is being laid at the feet of the company’s CEO (and former Lucent CEO) Patricia Russo. This BusinessWeek article provides more context:

Hard Times at Alcatel-Lucent

As the article points out, “some of Russo’s worst problems are not entirely of her own making.” That’s small consolation to the company’s shareholders — and the tens of thousands of staffers likely to be laid off — and I’m sure it will also be small consolation to Russo if and when she takes the fall for the company’s problems.