Alcatel: Looking Beyond Present Horizons

A belief in the future fuels the communications network company's
commitment to UTD in good times - and bad

By John H. Ostdick


The need to invest in innovative thinking and research is even more
critical during down times than in gravy times, says Rajiv Shah, vice
president of research and network strategy at Alcatel USA, who directs and
manages the activities of Alcatel's Corporate Research Center in Plano and
is part of the company's global research and innovation management team.

"A lot of people will scale back on investments during bad times," Mr.
Shah says. "We as a company have always earmarked a certain portion of our
investment to be sent to universities and other institutions outside
Alcatel for long-term research. The purpose is to be able to look beyond
the present horizon, to come up with new things."

Alcatel is a communications network giant based in France, with U.S.
headquarters in Plano. In the throes of a wrenching industry slump,
Alcatel and its competitors have significantly cut costs and scaled back
their workforces. Yet, Alcatel, a longtime corporate friend of The
University of Texas at Dallas (UTD), recognizes the importance of
nurturing its academic and research partners. As part of that support, it
is donating equipment to the University's new School of Management
building, scheduled for completion in summer 2003.

While the gift is critical to The UTD School of Management's continued
growth, Alcatel's loyalty is deeper and represents a longer-term
commitment than the actual equipment donation.

UTD is one of three U.S. educational partners (MCNC in Raleigh, North
Carolina, and the Sarnoff Corporation in Princeton, New Jersey, are the
other two) in the Alcatel Research Partner Program. The program promotes
closer long- term relationships with key universities and research
institutes to reinforce innovation efforts and sharpen the company's
competitive edge. UTD President Franklyn Jenifer and Mr. Shah of Alcatel
signed the Alcatel-UTD Research Framework Agreement in March; Mr. Shah
directs the steering committee overseeing the program.

Alcatel also has a number of international educational partners, including
France's Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique
(INRIA) - the country's leading research center in computer science and
control - and the Heinrich-Hertz-Institut, the leading German research
institute in photonic networks.

There are three components to the Alcatel program: research collaboration,
where the company and its research partners share information about future
technologies and mutually challenge their respective visions of the
future; mobility, training, and education that involves the exchange of
researchers and students; and incubation and start-up programs, currently
stifled by industry conditions.

"Traditionally, we have done these partnerships with a university's
engineering and computer science departments, but we feel there are
opportunities with UTD's School of Management," says Mr. Shah, who joined
Alcatel in April 2001. Prior to that, he worked for MCI WorldCom for five
years, spent seventeen years at Texas Instruments Incorporated, and spent
two years at the California Institute of Technology as a Dr. Chaim
Weizmann Post-Doctoral Research Fellow. He has a Master's degree and PhD
in Electrical Engineering from Rice University and an Executive MBA from
Southern Methodist University.

"Working with universities strengthens our out-of-the-box thinking," he
says.

Mr. Shah stresses UTD's importance to the heavily concentrated Telecom
Corridor in Richardson-Plano. "Over the years, [UTD] has tremendously
improved the quality of students coming in, areas of pursuits, and the
programs it offers. No one in the country has a better environment, in my
view, for success."

One of the keys to that success is shaping innovative minds capable of
overcoming business hurdles such as those that face the telecom sector
today.

"What's going to get this industry out of these doldrums are new engines
of growth - new types of ideas and user services, and a higher
concentration of broadband access," Mr. Shah says.

It's the very type of incubating, innovative ideas found within UTD's
School of Management that Alcatel Research Partnerships are all about.

A frequent contributor to MANAGEMENT, Dallas-based writer John H. Ostdick
writes for many national publications.