The Ericsson site in Anstey in Coventry is to close. Announced by the national news just over an hour ago - what a huge blow to the telecoms industry in the UK - and the dreadful loss of jobs. I worked with these people for over 12 years. The UK’s leading engineers, scientists, technologists and business people have worked for Ericsson, Marconi and its predecessors - including GEC, GPT and Plessey. Not one left. 

I think of the skills, knowledge and industry contacts that have also been lost. I think of the awe-inspiring £multi-million projects we used to work on across the world. I think of the visionary integration projects. The pioneering work done developing new products and services. What went wrong? Plenty it seems.

See what the press has to say:

ZDNet - 700 jobs to go as Ericsson abandons UK R&D

Reuters - Ericsson to axe 700 jobs from UK facility

BBC - Hundreds of jobs to go at Ericsson

A sad day for the telecoms industry … but then only those who can adapt quickly to change survive. Understanding trends and where your customers are moving wasn’t exactly a strength.

Ericsson say their decision to abandon UK-based R&D is “partly attributed to the fact that the UK no longer had a “high-growth” mobile telephony market.”  That says it all for me. Ericsson have been focused on the product - not the customer. A fatal flaw it now seems.

Looking back - this is the moment we lost the Marconi name. Who would have dreamt in the bullish 90s that Marconi would be bought by a Swedish mobile phone manufacturer in 2006.

Anyone remember the heady mass company acquision days of 1999?  The cocky confidence of 2000?  And, the dramatic fall from grace in 2001? Here’s a reminder of what Marconi was like - they were the best of times and the worst of times …

Even more scary … found this on the internet today - the only bit of Marconi that still survives in the ether on a forgotten website, marconicalling:

MARCONI TODAY

Information concerning Marconi plc on this site was correct as of mid-2001.
For current information please refer to www.marconi.com

Marconi plc is a global communications and IT company with around 48,000 employees world-wide. Marconi has research and development facilities in 19 countries, manufacturing operations in 16 countries, and serves customers in over 100 countries. It supplies advanced communications solutions and the key technologies and services for the Internet.

Marconi plc consists of the following business divisions: Communications, Services, Mobile, Systems and Capital.

Marconi Communications:
A leading global provider of high performance communications solutions for public and private networks, Marconi Communications has a long history of innovation and technological breakthroughs. It is one of the world’s rapidly growing broadband communications companies, helping to enhance the Internet with greater capacity and speed.

Marconi Services:
Marconi Services is focused on creating the communications solutions, architectures and networks of the future, offering customers the best in class services and products to meet their network needs.

Its portfolio of services are marketed under a ‘Plan, Build, Operate’ banner. Its ‘Plan’ offer includes business and technical consultancy, network architecture and finance. ‘Build’ covers project management, civil works, network design, and integration. ‘Operate’ includes network support, network upgrade, network management and training.
… and so on …

The only bit to survive in any form seems to be the Services business - now telent. Who’ll dare analyse where it all went wrong …