Comments on: Nortel Exits Optical, End of an Era

By: Ciena Wants To Buy Nortel’s Optical Business

Ciena Wants To Buy Nortel’s Optical Business — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 19:22:47 +0000

[...] Nortel which has been selling off its various divisions first announced its decision to sell its optical business last September. It is still unclear how much Ciena will pay for these assets. Nikos Theodosopoulos, analyst with [...]

By: A Nortel Bankruptcy Could Lead to a Deal

A Nortel Bankruptcy Could Lead to a Deal — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 14:31:29 +0000

[...] Stacey Higginbotham | Wednesday, January 14, 2009 | 5:58 AM PT | 0 comments In a sign of the troubled telecommunications industry, Toronto’s Globe and Mail is reporting that equipment maker Nortel ( s NT) plans to file for bankruptcy, perhaps as soon as today. The Canadian company has $4.5 billion in debt, faces declining sales for its gear as operators pause network deployments. To further its woes, the company is having a tough time raising cash by selling off its metro Ethernet division. [...]

By: Alcatel Makes Cuts–Will It Help?

Alcatel Makes Cuts–Will It Help? — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 14:39:57 +0000

[...] telecommunications industry such as Alcatel’s customers cutting costs and competitors such as Nortel trying to raise cash and figure out how to steer through a downturn, it’s also an effort to make Alcatel more [...]

By: UBS: Nortel May Cut 10% of Its Workforce - GigaOM

UBS: Nortel May Cut 10% of Its Workforce - GigaOM — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 15:57:11 +0000

[...] at least 3,000 employees.” Nortel has some liquidity concerns and needs to make cuts & sell its Metro Ethernet Networks (MEN) business in order to stabilize [...]

By: Mike

Mike — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 17:05:58 +0000

“In the long run every race is a two or three horse race”
The winning horses for the telecom equipment vendors:

Wireless networks: Ericsson, Nokia-Siemens, Huawei
Optics: Alcatel-Lucent, Huawei
Broadband fixed access: Alcatel-Lucent, Huawei
IP Core: Cisco, Alcatel-Lucent
Submarine cables: NEC, Alcatel-Lucent
IPTV: Alcatel-Lucent, Thompson
IMS Core Network: Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson
e2e Network Integration: Ericsson, Huawei (Mobile). Alcatel-Lucent (Fixed)

By: rohit

rohit — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 20:28:59 +0000

Carrier ethernet + optical seems to be a reasonable growth (10%?) business at 1.5B revenue and probably lots of fat to shed in the management ranks. Perhaps someone like silverlake needs to dig in here and see if they can turn it around. GM of <40% may be an issue

By: EdmontonOttawaSiliconValley

EdmontonOttawaSiliconValley — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 19:57:56 +0000

sad day for optical engineers…. nortel (BNR) was instrumental in creating the field of fibre optic communications. a case study for b-schools in how a company that made the first x.25 switch, dominated digital voice switching with DMS100, and lit the world’s first commercial fibre optic link (Sasketchewan in 1980) will now disappear in pieces.

By: Mobilize: Nortel CTO John Roese - GigaOM

Mobilize: Nortel CTO John Roese - GigaOM — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 17:56:35 +0000

[...] warned that infrastructure needs to evolve appropriately. It was a timely conversation given the recent news that Nortel will sell off its Metro Ethernet Networks (optical and 40G) business as a way to shore [...]

By: Omkar

Omkar — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 16:23:03 +0000

Very unfortunate. Yes, Nortel has (or had) it all. I have had the chance to visit their main engineering campus of MEN (Metro Ethernet Network) Group, Ottawa and the atmosphere was too poullted due to job losses. Some heads are used to roll almost every month. However, I did not see the change in work culture ever in my entire stay – hard work, dedication, real leadership, thinking out of the box, going all out, putting it all – it was not at all there. It was like Nero’s group at Rome who made fun when Rome was burning!

I wonder what will happen to the other side, i.e., outsourcers. I mean you will see almost all of them there – Infosys, Wipro, HCL, TCS, Sasken, i2, Flextronics et al from India and Canada are there. And I guess the tune of the employees will be in thousands – which is very very huge. I really wonder where these guys will go? MEN of Nortel is itself a strong group and added to its all the people who are outsourced by various companies – Good God!

Om,

Any idea what will happen to these folks?

Will appreciate your thoughts on it.

By: Stephan

Stephan — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 02:30:21 +0000

I suppose any company that commissions a vanity Christmas album inevitably has a hard fall coming. At least we’ll be able to remember their optical division for “I Want An OC192 For Christmas.”

http://blogfiles.wfmu.org/DP/2007/08/230_15_WTNT_-_We're_Talkin_Northern_Telecom.mp3

By: Aaron deMello

Aaron deMello — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 00:11:37 +0000

I love Nortel dearly, they gave me my first huge contract as a custom software developer back in 1998 or so. However, the company today is nothing but a miserable shell of what it used to be. Its a classic example of doing almost everything completely wrong. I remember when Nortel passed on buying Juniper… and now Juniper will do the same to them.

In the meantime, billions of dollars in Canadian wealth have been wiped out since every granny had their retirement dollars at least partially in ever-green Northern Telecom.