Great article in the Post. It should be interesting as your article talked about to see if the downstream M&A value is realized or not. These are some big beasts to integrate and are not known for their being fleet of foot.

What does this mean for the smaller Telecom equipment makers?

i think the telecom equipment industry will go through extensive consolidation across the board. this is not to suggest, smaller players can't exist but suppliers who can offer broad portfolios and service seem to be in vogue.

The conventional wisdom says that when consolidation is finished, you generally have 3 big "full lineup" players (one leader, one follow-the-leader, one innovator) and unlimited specialized innovators (niche companies). In the telecom equipment world, we may be approaching this, but we are not there yet. Yes, we have Alcalent, SieNokia, and Ericsson, but what about Cisco, Huawei, ZTE, not to mention Juniper, Nortel, Motorola? Can the mergers be completed successfully? Can product lines be consolidated? Can European workforces be downsized? Can holes in the product lineup be fixed? - Ericsson has littlewireline and little wired broadband, Alcalent little wireless, Sienokia no wired broadband access? Can Cisco continue to grow? Will Enterprise and consumer businesses continue to increase in importance? Will the Chinese continue to grow? Will the telcos burn out and be replaced by cablecos and wirelesscos, depriving the big players of viable customers? This is only the beginning of the end, not the end.

How about a Nortel-Motorola-Microsoft joint venture? Can you say Norolasoft?