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      IBM to Snap Up Nortel?

      By Mark Evans | September 4, 2008

      There are rumors - and I stress rumors - that IBM is going to acquire Nortel.

      Yup, that’s the speculation that has reportedly been gaining a lot of traction. Don’t ask me where I heard this rumor but I’ll try to provide more details as they emerge.

      With Nortel trading at $5.90, IBM is looking at a $2.93-billion acquisition, not including a takeover premium. So perhaps we’re looking at a $3.5-billion to $4-billion deal.

      Nortel and IBM are no strangers. In 2005, they signed an agreement to collaborate on the design and development of new products, while creating a Nortel-IBM Joint Development Center in North Carolina.

      As well, Nortel’s chief marketing officer, Lauren Flaherty, spent 26 years with IBM before joining Nortel in 2006.

      Nortel and IBM have signed an agreement to collaborate on the design and development of new products and services, the companies announced Friday.

      As part of that agreement, the two companies will establish a Nortel-IBM Joint Development Center in North Carolina.

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      Topics: M&A |

      Viewing 42 Comments

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        Now it does! What would IBM want with MEN???

        Nothing.

        Now Nortel is prime picking for Enterprise players... IBM and MS included.
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        Kindly excuse my swimming against the tide to claim no man is an island at Nortel.

        These are educated and moral people at the very top Nortel buffers itself with to burden the political brunt of the results.

        I feel no individual can be accountable for Nortel's struggles albeit exponentially better heads prevailed ( a dream team vs. to a green team missing in action during the telecom wars)

        No single figurehead can take direct blame for Nortel's woes since the bubble burst even though their peers turned around and they did not.

        I believe the leaders represent what they are told. It is the aggregate the justisdicts outcome from "crazy levels" and a board of directors, etc.... I call this macro-ambiguous. ( I also say the larger the private or public institution, the greater the error factor to manage but that's another story =)

        Arguably, last two said they like being CEO, once then they are paid well. =) Many from the crime scene still remain a sailor termed "difficult hard to find" before the light bulb maker indirectly repaid his past employer or promoted his pals =) No one is perfect... they do the job within the confines they operate and take the political brunt for outcome "risking careers". Could they have foreseen their bad acquisitions or India supply lines, revisions, etc... endless events looking like they are tripping over themselves directionless, jinxed may be a better word, getting hit every which way they turn.

        When the results wreak havoc, they are the once facing the tossed tomatoes to the aggregate of how well the company performs. On the other extreme, nothing worse than a bad salesman winning in a golden territory either.

        Before I get thrashed for getting too verbose in diatribe and called crazy for it, I would broadly summarize that better heads prevailed and could do nothing. Their stellar leaders and figureheads can do nothing. No man is an island. All the kings horses and all the kings men could ever put Nortanic together again.

        To personify the company would make it a thief and pathological slandering liar headed to zero damning the torpedoes and full steam ahead, hardly reflective of the moral caliber of people trying to fruitlessly salvage it. This struggling company seems desperate, directionless, contradicting, and hopeless...

        New boss same as the Old Boss - We don't get Fooled Again:
        Again, no man is an island. The mass orchestrated fraud could not have been accomplished by just one person. The fraud was sold to the plea bargained board who denied obvious red flags for bonuses they approved and received.

        When we see inexperienced criminally charged pals promoted than fired to the employees horror by a green CEO hired for an an axe cutting track record, claiming buying opportunities leading by example let alone averaging down, watch long boasted WiMax vaporize as they boast LTE having sold UMTS with less credibility than Neptune god box... we certainly have plenty of tomatoes to toss due to the endless events leading to its inevitable demise, contrary to the happy talk and fire side chats.

        The fellas might be stellar but the company as an aggregate stinks, regurgitating what they are fed by claiming a thousand flies just can't be wrong with endless contradictions having cost too many too dearly.
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        True, we should not be blaming the executives for the state of the company as they get paid millions of dollars... rolls eyes. Thanks for the post Mike.
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        bb - I understand your last point but I have an issue with your example. The current Nortel leadership team was not elected by the employees, it was imposed on them by an incompetent board and CEO. George Bush on the other hand, was elected (and re-elected... OMG) so all those who voted for him deserve everything that's happened to them and worse.

        ex-nortel^2 - I think a significant majority of frequent posters to this blog wish no ill will for the Nortel employee base. Sure, the ranks contain deadwood and some who have a misplaced sense of entitlement, but I think the majority are just trying to hang on and get the job done. I think the incompetence at the board and cabinet level is what fuels the negativity from most posters and I think the criticism is earned and fair.
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        I'd be front and center if Nortel had a cable for me to run. But I would still suggest taking out, say, UMTS coax first. Instead of removing light bulbs everywhere for the sake of touting green.
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        Tired,

        You disappoint me…

        It has been said here before (including by me) that being hopeful is not as good as being realistic. Reality is undeniable and cannot be argued against. In addition, hope requires a ‘Plan’ and, to date, we have NOT seen one from Nortel that makes any sense (though many of us had sincerely hoped we would).

        Nortel is a place where opportunists act out childhood fantasies as pseudo-strategists and pseudo-visionaries (without any foundation for such acts); real strategists are nowhere to be seen (or heard); software architects are an endangered species; 'marketing minds' follow processes (as if they are making sausages); totally unqualified operational guys get to act out more of those aforementioned childhood fantasies (and run things they shouldn’t); where cronyism has been elevated to a new art form and leadership is done by proxy from 30,000 feet in the air. Net-net; hope hasn’t worked!

        When George Bush came into office we all had hopes but reality is very different today. Those that criticize failed leadership in whatever manner and however unpleasant it may feel should be neither judged, ridiculed nor silenced. Quoting Edgar Allan Poe: “Insanity is a sane response to an insane condition.” This blog does not need a ‘Bill O’ Reilly’– bb
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        "ex-nortel" - Simply not wanting to see a company destroyed and turned to dust does not in any way make me an NT shill. I've got plenty of issues with the way the company has performed, as any reasonable person would. I guess not praying to God every day that NT crumbles and everyone loses their jobs and suffers personal loss must add up to a shill in some people's books. Just as I'm tired of the extremely negative and outright hateful diatribes from some people, I guess some of you are tired of those with foolishly positive outlooks as well as those with even remotely hopeful outlooks. Guess what - I'm happy to be one with a hopeful outlook. If you don't like it, tough, but I'm not going away any more than you are.
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        I want this company to succeed more than anything. I still have stake in it, in someone there. And having a stake makes us the most realistic of all. Denigrating and dismissing everyone who disagrees with you is what keeps this board tilting to the adolescent side of debate.

        Proto, I welcome your insights here.
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        Tired, Proto's definition of "pumper" is anyone that doesn't want to see Nortel destroyed. It's almost like a cult. Hopefully Nortel executives have good security.
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        protospherical - You are clearly an ass. An obnoxious one at that. My guess is that you're like most trolls and want to get people peeved and react to your blatantly jackass statements. Well congratulations - I've taken the bait and decided that you're so far the biggest prick I've seen on any board that should be above this level of childish banter - and I'm not excluding myself from that label in this case. So continue to make rants against people who you deem "pumpers" - obviously as someone else pointed out you're the opposite of a "pumper" and have more than an axe to grind.
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        And here I thought protospherical had the most straightforward insight into Nortel today. What a fool was I, eh?

        Tired</>, Go Away. I'm tired of the NT shills. We all are.
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        too challenging. spew. woefully. bitter. hate.

        I smell Godwin's Law waiting in the wings.

        Oh and "global warming".
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        Well the Nortel cheerleaders have certainly followed with their traditional attacks just as I have indicated. Watcher's sentences are grammatically so long they are senseless as he knocks the length of my post, go figure, Maybe he isn't a reader lest writer. The other expresses concern in a one liner followed by another to who it is directed to. If the poll is any indication of who they are, no wonder Nortanic is in trouble =)

        Anyways, to keep it simple just for these challenged wishful pumpers, what happened to the last Nortel / IBM Edge development... heh, pumpers. sadly entertaining, poor devils. =)
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        I'm not so sure it's such a bad deal for IBM and it has nothing to do with the quality of Nortel's portfolio.

        Nortel has a TON of stuff deployed that is going to need to be replaced. If you were sitting on a Nortel-based network, wouldn't you be worried about their ongoing viability? Sounds like a motivated customer base to me. Getting Nortel out of the networks is going to involve a lot of equipment deals and a lot of services deals. I could see IBM buying Nortel and then going to the customer base and using current installed base support as a lever to get the installed base to migrate to IBM replacements, some of which may be based on the good bits that are left in Nortel.

        proto - I don't think anyone reads your posts. They're too long and they read like the ramblings of a lunatic. If you have a point, please get to it more quickly.
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        The future of all networking services (telecom/wireless/enterprise) is software-centric and IBM has some of the best stuff around (Websphere-SOA). This basically means that hardware will become even less important as it is ‘virtualized’ by software control mechanisms and similar means. IBM acquiring Nortel is akin to Microsoft acquiring the PC vendors that Microsoft itself made irrelevant. Not a chance!!! --bb
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        Nortel cheerleaders stalk proven critics to unethically target shooting the bearer of bad news with mean spirited, deceptive, and stupid ploys for their vested interest with this struggling company. What they claim about proven posters is simply slanderous and not true!

        Critics have reiterated that if there was anything positive to say over the years they would have said so. Critics have forecast with an exponentially greater degree of accuracy than even analysts to what Nortel feeds them in their relentless optimism and fire side chats when ongoing cuts are just not enough. Happy talk has proven false and misleading over these 3 to 5 years, Nortel lacks credibility in endless contradictions, not the observers that post critical facts that are simply bad, bad ongoing news in this saga.

        Nortel contradictions have it lacking credibility from bonusgate fraud to extreme reverse splits to draw institutions, mega-revisions after fraud settlement, BSNL, PEC, Neptune, 3 to 5 years, $20 buys, promoting pals, WiMax, Putian, etc... heck we can go on forever... now what worked... endless contradictions... and headed to zero to with green team pumping more hype and PR craze than ever. How can anyone remain silent.

        No thank you for the proven advise from the stalking cheerleaders who shamelessly and unethically slander with fabrication insult under many IDs on many boards, they detest posting facts the truth that point to it being a dog, as its stock charts blatantly indicate.

        As for any takeover, be it by IBM, Motorola, Seimens, Huawei, etc., who in their right mind would acquire a company rewarding printing so much Nortel paper to survive with board members till on the audit committee with this rate of resumed cash burn cuts can not catch up to. A struggling company losing moiney with increased interest payments and bad credit rating that has more debt than declining cash with increasingly challenged outlook. Who would assume their largest pension deficit in Canada with the vast percentage of their earnings in decline... this too is as endless as its desperate contradictions.

        Besides, all others have consumer products, Nortel does not now. What would they sell, telephony? software? Manufacturing was sold long ago. So was headquarters from over 3 timesit s size and sales, as it still loses money in its linear death spiral headed to zero lacking miracles.

        How could anyone afford to break up parts of the business to salvage only those with any returns, than the aggregate headed to bankruptcy.

        As attractive as an extreme presplit sub buck stock may seem for a company this size from expensive revenue purchases for revenue sake to make their musical chairs numbers, it seems to me they would have to pay the buyer just to take it off their hands and assume the ongoing risks in decline.

        They were a lucky to sell UMTS as was Lucent to be acquired by Alcatel. Now they have no 3G customers to migrate boasted 4G LTE into, another years out aspiration of endless past aspiration of which none have worked. What would anyone be acquiring here.

        Is their long extended repair of accounting correct yet the lenient SEC finally monitors as they export jobs than product under EDC welfare. Can they even the green team be trusted "risking careers" with so many still there in "crazy levels". Endless reasons no one would touch this jinxed company even if they paid them it seems to me. The name Nortel has a bad stigma to it sub buck presplit as they boasted buying opportunities and turnaround. Even post fraud look at the losses from anyone listening to them.

        It is a shrinking, disgraced, "yesteryear darling" destined to fold. Had it folded at 43 cents presplit last time, it would have saved many thousands having fallen victim to this mega fraud. Nortel has been ever so lucky to print money, extreme reverse split, hype and trade at all let alone keep carrying on like this under "safe harbor" in this endless saga of ongoing contradiction and ongoing new lows. Let alone being acquired which is always rumour, sadly entertaining rumor, but just that, rumor nonetheless... a rumor that will never transpire with anyone in my opinion for endless reasons, endless.. =)
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        Nortel cheerleaders stalk proven critics to unethically target shooting the bearer of bad news with mean spirited, deceptive, and stupid ploys for their vested interest with this struggling company. What they claim about proven posters is simply slanderous and not true!

        Critics have reiterated that if there was anything positive to say over the years they would have said so. Critics have forecast with an exponentially greater degree of accuracy than even analysts to what Nortel feeds them in their relentless optimism and fire side chats when ongoing cuts are just not enough. Happy talk has proven false and misleading over these 3 to 5 years, Nortel lacks credibility in endless contradictions, not the observers that post critical facts that are simply bad, bad ongoing news in this saga.

        Nortel contradictions have it lacking credibility from bonusgate fraud to extreme reverse splits to draw institutions, mega-revisions after fraud settlement, BSNL, PEC, Neptune, 3 to 5 years, $20 buys, promoting pals, WiMax, Putian, etc... heck we can go on forever... now what worked... endless contradictions... and headed to zero to with green team pumping more hype and PR craze than ever. How can anyone remain silent.
        ==============
        re
        Proto, you are so right
        Bulls try to kill the messenger anytime we post our analysis from the Bear side.
        Yes, we deserve celebration of winning that game on the stock market. We protected our families and friends who trusted our DD. Another drop of NT stock is just a proof how wrong all the Bulls_hypers have been.
        I was able to see from outside_and_from_a_distance revenues dropping this year and new job cuts /huge/ coming as well. So I asked why CEO did not see that a month ago /Q2 cc/?
        Why he preached single digit growth of the business when new orders have been declined 25% in just one quarter? Patching the hole with deferred revenues and cloud the picture was the answer. That's what it was during Q2 cc.
        Job cuts, confirmed!
        Lower new orders, confirmed!
        Lower revenues, confirmed!
        Selling more assets, confirmed!
        Mike Z a liar, I think so /my opinion/
        What about those margins? Why the margins are better each quarter but EBITa losses tripled? Is it too much for Mike to explain simple thing. OK what about you, Mark Evans.
        Can you explain that contradiction?
        Take your time, think about that and when you find the answer, please share with us.
        I know how other companies report deferred revenues if they had restatements similar to NT. Nortel deferred more than $3.5 bill revenues during restatements /years 1999-2003/
        Those revenues have to be recognized one day or another.
        Why public does not know how those revenues change Nortel's numbers/ margins, how they change picture of current Nortel business?
        Did Nortel defer optical revenues during restatements? I think so. So how recognizing that revenue now misinform public about current optical sales? Same in each and every division. I have articles, which show that up to 2007 Nortel did not recognize much of that revenue. It means that current CFO has been doing that.
        $680 mill recognized in H1 2008
        more that $1 bill will be recognized in 2008.
        Bo Gowan says that's as good revenue as any other. Oh ya, sure, not for a shareholder, specially if it was revenue from the years 1999-2003!
        Look at your post Mark E.
        Any new ideas about IBM buying NT without MEN?
        .
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        That sure was a mouthful. Are you ok fella?
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        fyi, my reply was to protospherical1
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