Heather Ferguson was a business area manager in network applications at the lab. Since she left Ericsson, where she'd been working for eight years, Ferguson's views on employment and job security in the 21st century have changed.
"[The closure] was definitely a bit of a shock and very sad news. I had worked at Ericsson since joining as a graduate, so it was a big change for me," she told ZDNet Australia.
Currently working for an IT consulting company as a project manager, Ferguson says the announcement of the closure cast things in a new light.
"It really makes you re-think your career plan," she said.
Ferguson will now make sure she has the skills required to be marketable in the future. Being made redundant with no saleable expertise is a risk she hadn't previously considered, she said.
The change has been huge for some who are using the time they have on their hands to reassess their careers.
"I think there are people in all sorts of situations. Some people I know have found jobs, others are still looking... and some are taking the opportunity to take some time off and think about what they want to do," she said.
After the expiry of her 6-month contract, Ferguson hopes another opportunity will come up.
Some of the more entrepreneurial staffers, like Andrew Pollard, David Terry and Tony Scully, have taken the opportunity to start their own businesses.
The three have opened up a consultancy, Independent Business Analysis, that specialises in telecommunications project management and review.
The three managers had clocked up a total of 34 years of experience at Ericsson between them, Pollard being the most senior with 17 years under his belt. He was the general manager for applications development at the lab, and says the announcement of the closure was oddly motivating for his staff.
"It was the first time that we knew what the next 6 months held," he told ZDNet Australia .
For the first time the designers had clear timelines. They had 6 months to work on their projects and get them done.
The closure definitely came as a shock to Terry, who was at Ericsson HQ in Sweden the day the decision to close the labs was relayed to its managing director, Ric Clark.
"I had just been in Sweden determining which new projects we were to take on," he said.
It's not all doom and gloom--the three are very optimistic about their future.
"Business is good so far... we've had two projects, one's completed and the other one's a project review of a US$500 million project," he said.
Remaining upbeat about the future of research and development in Australia, Terry, like the managing director of the lab, Ric Clark, attributed the closure to the tyranny of distance. He doesn't believe the closure is an ominous sign for the local industry.
"Ericsson is in trouble, and as a European company they're going to contract back into Europe," he said. "I think it's a positive sign that AsiaPacificLab was one of the last design centres outside of Europe".
Former AsiaPacificLab Business manager, John Santopietro, who had been with Ericsson for 18 years, was initially shocked when the lab closed, but says in retrospect it was understandable.
"Given the climate of the telco space it wasn't unexpected... it was just what was going on globally," he said.
He agrees that simple geography played a significant role in the closure.
"We were just a bit too far away to be considered Europe," he said.
Santopietro is working with EDS on a six month contract and while remaining positive about his future, things are rather uncertain.
"I think the whole IT industry has been deflated some what," he said. "I've got this contracting position so I'll see it through and then we'll see after that".
Yep, the US made a movie about this.
Talk about kissing....