Consolidation as a means to expansion has been the tradition in the wireless industry. Look no further than Craig McCaw, amassing a wireless fortune one cellular license at a time.
Each merger, each alliance, each buyout, has been greeted with surprise, then understanding, and finally, acceptance. Fewer companies, more properties.
We wireless watchers have seen carriers like AirTouch Communications Inc. and BellSouth Corp. seek to expand their fortunes with foreign properties, and watched Motorola Inc. take stakes in markets beyond American shores. We have known that wireless communications is a global marketplace. Sprint Corp. aligns with Deutsche Telekom and France Telecom; MCI Communications Inc. partners with British Telecommunications plc.
The United States is going global.
Last week, Lucent Technologies Inc., the telephone maker with the legacy of Western Electric Co. and Alexander Graham Bell behind it, announced it would sell the majority stake of its phone manufacturing operations to Philips Electronics N.V. of the Netherlands.
Lucent will benefit from Philips’ global dominance; the alliance will give the former AT&T company a chance to break into European and Asian markets with the strength of the Philips name behind it. Yet, the new company will be based in Parsippany, N.J.
Lucent doesn’t hold a significant share of the cellular phone market, the company’s strength has always been its infrastructure equipment.
Nevertheless, part of U.S. history is changing.
Are Americans more comfortable with globalization when it is the United States venturing beyond its shores?
It’s always been easy to root for the home team, although the wireless industry, perhaps more than others, has judged companies by their products rather than their made-in-the-USA tags. This is an industry filled with Nokias and Ericssons, Masushitas and Nortels.
The United States is going global. As President Clinton noted in his keynote address at TCI’s National Digital Television Center prior to the Summit of Eight last weekend in Denver: “Globalization is irreversible.”
So there is little reason to say goodbye to a manufacturer with American roots, because in the wireless arena, country lines are just that, lines, not boundaries or barriers.
Wireless has always been global.
