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More Talk from CTO John Roese
By Mark Evans | October 28, 2006
Nortel chief technology officer John Roese sure ain’t shy these days. He seems to popping up in the news on a regular basis, weighing in on Wi-Max one day and how YouTube could break the Internet the next. He recently sat down for an interview with CNet in which he talked about Wi-Max, 4G, Nortel’s prospects in the enterprise market, and consolidation in the telecom equipment market. A particularly interesting quote is Roese’s assertion “Nortel is a great company with great potential, but it was misdirected for the past five years.” Let’s break down this comment. First, Nortel is not a great company right now. It has some great technology and many smart people but it’s not a runaway leader in any sector so describing it as “great” isn’t accurate - although it is definitely a glass half-full view of the world. Second, Nortel has “great potential”. Well, every telecom equipment player has potential but the proof is in the pudding, and 2007 will be a crucial year for Nortel to prove it can execute on its strategic initiatives. Third, Nortel was “misdirected for the past five years”. That’s interesting because CEO Mike Zafirovski has been at helm for the past year. So, let’s give Roese the benefit of the doubt and assume he meant Nortel was misdirected from 2000 to 2005. This covers the John Roth, Frank Dunn and Bill Owens CEO eras. On this point, Roese makes a good point. Roth got caught up in the euphoria the telecom boom and was caught with his pants down when the market suddenly melted down - shortly after he boasted about Nortel driving towards $40-billion in annual sales amid strong market share gains. Frank Dunn was unsuited for the job and was fired with cause amid allegations he was part of an accounting scandal that triggered lucrative bonuses for senior executives. Bill Owens was unfortunatley unqualified to lead Nortel, although he did provide the company with some much-needed stability after Dunn was fired. Owens may have been a terrific U.S. Admiral but he wasn’t a world-class telecom CEO, and he made some costly strategic mistakes (e.g. driving the company to enter into a money-losing contract in India with BSNL, refusing to step aside and let COO Gary Daichendt run the show, etc.) Getting back to Roese, it’s probably time for Nortel to stop looking back at what happened. The company’s it what it is these days for better or worse. A better approach would be to look ahead and focus on a challenging competitive landscape.
Topics: Executive Suite |