After the Alcatel (ALA) and Lucent (LU) deal took place, speculation over the future of Juniper Networks (JNPR) began to swirl.

Those rumors soon filtered around to the point where the Swedish tech firm Ericsson (ERICY) had to deny they were looking at Juniper with an open checkbook in hand.

Svanberg told reporters on Monday, “It’s not critical for us to own routers… We have not looked at them,” in reference to Juniper.

Hopeful investors pushed Juniper up amid that speculation, but the deflating comments by Svanberg pushed the stock price back to 18.76.

For Juniper’s part, the company continued forward with its normal business. The company announced the availability of its next-generation Secure Access SSL VPN Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) appliances, the SA 4000 FIPS and SA 6000 FIPS.

Those products are intended for government use, particularly at the federal level. Juniper does need to see significant adoption of those and other parts of its hardware lines in the wake of the Alcatel-Lucent merger.

Lucent has been one of Juniper’s biggest customers, along with Ericsson and Siemens. The business Lucent gave Juniper would likely go to Alcatel now, draining a large part of Juniper’s revenue stream, the Wall Street Journal reported.

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David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.

Alcatel ((ADR) NYSE:ALA) and Lucent (NYSE:LU) announced their merger, which will form a combined company with a market cap of about $36 billion.

A fixed exchange ratio of 0.1952 will be the centerpiece of the stock-for-stock merger, the companies said in a presentation. That will give Lucent shareholders about $3.01 worth of Alcatel American Depository Shares for each share of Lucent, which closed Friday at $3.05.

Lucent CEO Patricia Russo will move to Paris to be the CEO of the merged firm, with current Alcatel CEO Serge Tchuruk taking the position of non-executive chairman of the board. The new board will have six current directors each from Lucent and Alcatel (including Russo and Tchuruk); they will mutually choose two new independent European directors.

The company plans to eliminate ten percent of its combined workforce after the merger, reportedly as many as 8,800 people. Also, Alcatel will form a separate, US-based independent subsidiary to allow it to compete for certain US government contracts. Alcatel plans to have that company managed by a three-member board of US citizens “acceptable to the US government.”

Alcatel expects collective revenues from the merger to reach almost $25 billion based on both companies 2005 performance. They also expect to enjoy a competitive benefit from the merging of the two firms research and development teams. Lucent’s main base of Murray Hill, New Jersey, for Bell Labs will remain its US headquarters.

Among their technology developments, Alcatel believes this will strengthen their Triple Play/IPTV deployments of over 40 projects and more than 20 commercial live networks. This also leads into Quadruple Play services that introduce mobile television to the mix.

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David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.

The platform consists of an array of IMS related hardware and software products and applications. These will help SBC companies share next-gen customizable IP-based services and applications. SBC expects to begin introducing services enabled by the new platform sometime late in 2006 or early 2007.

“This agreement is a significant step in SBC’s continuing effort to build solutions around consumers’ lifestyles,” said John Stankey, SBC senior executive vice president – chief technology officer. “Lucent’s IMS solution will help customers access and use IP-enabled voice, video and broadband data services regardless of where they’re located, or which wireless or wireline device they’re using at the time.”

Cingular Wireless LLC, a joint venture between SBC and BellSouth, and Lucent on Monday announced that Lucent also would provide its IMS platform to Cingular. While Cingular and SBC each will independently deploy their respective platforms, having a common platform supplier will enhance opportunities for SBC and Cingular to provide their customers a more seamless wireless/wireline experience.

“IMS-based services allow for enhanced, customized and personalized services that offer compelling value to consumers. IMS is truly a transformational step in network development with the potential to reshape and radically improve the customer experience,” said David Heeren, vice president of sales for Lucent Technologies. “We are excited to work with SBC to help bring product and service integration from conception to reality.”

John Stith is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.

Stocks prices were up about 6 cents a share from 2 cents last year. This $282 million dollar jump is huge over last year’s $68 million.

Analysts were looking for a profit of 4 cents a share for $2.31 billion in sales.

“Overall, it was a solid quarter for us,” Lucent chairman and CEO Patricia Russo told analysts during a morning conference call.

“We also continued to show strength in our services business, with close to half a billion dollars in revenues, and we continue to invest in areas that are critical to our business such as next-gen optical, VoIP and mobile high-speed data, as well as services, government and emerging markets,” Russo said.

Cindy Christy, former president of the Lucent Mobility Solutions division, will head the new combined mobility and wireline businesses. The new business will be called the Network Solutions Group.

Lucent had no predictions on how and who would be laid off as a result of this in-house merger although Lucent has dumped 800 workers since autumn.

John Stith is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.