Alcatel - Lucent... overdoing the rebranding and FMC groupthink

OK, a test for all you out there. Go to the brand new post-merger Alcatel-Lucent website and see how long it takes you to find any product information about its CDMA EV-DO Rev A network offerings. I gave up. Maybe they've canned it all during the merger, as I'm damned if I could find anything on the main website & I didn't have time to dig up my password to the former Lucent analyst extranet.

Go on, you have a try.

Yes, that's it.... a single bullet point in the general EV-DO section, which itself lurks under the smarmy and oh-so-intuitive heading of "Broadband for all", next to the equally wince-inducing heading of "User centric experience". Then think... is Rev A about "Mobile Penetration"? Or "Mass Market Broadband"? Or "Leading Edge Services"?

Urgh. I'd like to buy 17 user-centric experiences & a dozen competitive transformations, please, Mr Account Manager. And can I get fries with my "business critical communications"? What a load of rubbish.

Note to the new Alcatel-Lucent web marketing head honcho - You represent a technology company, so have a tab on the website so that people who know what technology they're looking for can go straight to it , without having to wade through your branding quicksand. Yes, maybe its easier for your internal organisation to group together a bunch of disparate access technologies like ADSL and EV-DO. But just label it "Access", and then have a hierachical menu split between fixed and mobile. We all know that that there's lots of clever FMC evolution going on, but for now, 99% of people have something quite specific in mind, so why not help them?

And by the way, your search engine and product catalog sucks too - do you really think it enhances readability to spell out "Alcatel Lucent" for every single product in your alphabetic listing? Just because you spent $$$m on a corporate image consultancy, please don't try and get your money's worth by trying to beat the world record for repetitive brand-per-page count.