The company plans to sell off a maker of lawn mowers and possibly a collection of radio stations this year, turning it into a pure telecom play.
At a market cap of $43 billion, Siemens has lost only 16% of its value in the last year in a period when pure telecom equipment plays were down 60%.
A few years ago, Heinrich von Pierer, the CEO of Siemens, received this advice from his investment bankers: Shed the traditional heavy industrial units and become a pure telecom equipment company.
This is BT's first solo step into the world of Web 2.0 services, outside of their Yahoo partnership, and is a very important step in their (r)evolution from a pure Telecom company into a web services organisation.
"Sun is as pure a telecom play as you can get," says Robert Rosenberg, president of Insight Research, a Parsippany, N.J.-based telecom research firm.
A few months ago it seemed that Vivendi would become a pure, if unexciting, telecoms company, after selling its entertainment assets and Universal Music, its huge music business.
Amid European telecoms' dealmaking frenzy, Bouygues represents the only pure mobile-telephony play in France, the Continent's second-largest economy.
AT&T may never attain the kind of valuations that a pure wireless or mono-line cable company can achieve, but the former U.S. telecom monopoly is certainly worth more than $51 a share.
Amid European telecoms' dealmaking frenzy, Bouygues due to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange this fall represents the only pure mobile-telephony play in France, the Continent's second-largest economy.
