Lucent Reorganizes Operating Units

Struggling telecommunications equipment maker Lucent Technologies Inc., accelerating its wide-ranging reorganization plan, is consolidating its five internal business divisions into two primary operating units.

Mobility, composed mostly of the company’s Wireless Networks Group, will handle all wireless communications products, spokesman Bill Price said.

The other unit, to be called Integrated Network Solutions, combines Lucent divisions that handled data networking, optical networking, switching and software platforms--all for wired communications networks.

“We’re basically matching the way our customers buy around wireline and wireless segments,” Price said.

Jeong Kim, head of Lucent’s optical networking business, will resign for personal reasons, Price said.

Kim will stay through the launch of Lucent’s next-generation optical products, but no time frame for his exit has been announced.

Lucent has been eliminating thousands of jobs and offering retirement buyouts to many U.S. workers in an effort to cut annual costs by $2 billion.

The Murray Hill, N.J.-based company expects to announce today how many of 10,000 employees accepted buyouts offered last month.

Shares of Lucent fell 34 cents to $6.01 on the New York Stock Exchange.