Lucent+ Alcatel = Lucatel ?

So its finally happening..the merger of equals (yea right!!) . of two telecom giants.Its been reported that the merger would involve a USD $13.4bn stock-swap.Although touted as a merger of equals, Alcatel shareholders will have 60% of the combined firm.The new company's HQ will however be out of Lucents current HQ in New Jersey.

The company hasn't settled on a new name as yet, but could perhaps call in former HP CEO Carly Fiorina for help. While working at AT&T, Fiorina brought Lucent to life, picking out the company's monicker and logo and selling it to Wall Street. Lucent's $3bn April 1996 IPO was the biggest one in history to that point.

So far so good..they have a plan to bring in two lagging companies to form a single effective leading mammoth.Lucent has been having a real bad time since 2001 (ever-famous layoffs!), while Alcatel hasnt done that great in the past year.If cost savings are acheived as they claim and if they strike out a great working relationship (keep in mind its across the atlantic-plus this is a yankee-french deal), Juniper, Cisco all might just wanna watch out..

The two companies have penciled in quite the cushion to close the deal, expecting it to take anywhere between six months to a year to finalize.