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All Quiet on the All Nortel Front
By Mark Evans | December 23, 2007
Unless Nortel does something newsworthy over the holidays (similar to buying Tasman Networks in late-December, 2005), things will be pretty quiet around here.
Happy Holidays, and thanks for visiting/reading!
Topics: Blogs |

December 24th, 2007 at 4:51 am
Mark,
Are you going to do something newsworthy over the holidays? The mere suggestion and underlying implication that Nortel needs to do “yet another newsworthy thing” just because it’s the holidays is beyond absurd. Would you also recommend they ‘follow’ their Tasman move of two years ago and do something equally newsworthy? If I were Nortel I would be trying to forget that one, not repeat it.
Nortel needs to do what Nortel needs to do without any consideration for the coincidental timing of any season. Or, perhaps Nortel should take a cue form you and start doing newsworthy things during Easter, Yom Kippur, Ramadan, even Thanksgiving. I am sure that is precisely what they need at this stage.
Mark, you are much better than that. May I suggest you lay off that Canadian eggnog; I think Bronfman might have gotten to it before you did.
December 24th, 2007 at 1:01 pm
And Happy Holidays to you as well, Bill. To be honest, I think you read my post wrong. Unless Nortel makes news, I’ll be chilling and probably not blogging much.
December 25th, 2007 at 3:17 pm
Yea Bill, Chill out, whats wrong with you. Your out of control. You must be management.
December 25th, 2007 at 9:46 pm
Mark,
My apologies; indeed, I read it wrong. Perhaps it is I that should lay off the eggnog margaritas.
Nortelemployee,
If you are going to comment and insult people do so without hiding behind a pseudonym. Be a man, dude…
December 26th, 2007 at 9:01 am
Bill:
No worries. Eggnog margaritas? So that’s what you do with eggnog?
December 27th, 2007 at 7:15 pm
Well I would say if all is quite at Nortel that is a good thing because they are not screwing anything up. Wait till they get back to work on January 2, 2008 and they will do everything possible to spin some kind of bad news or start off with a fresh ZMail.
January 2nd, 2008 at 10:28 am
I invested in Nortel a long time ago … after the reverse stock split, it would basically take over 99$ a share to get back my money … $12000. Is there anyone that I can refer to get get the really story, behind Nortel and whats going on with the former giant ? If I choose to ignore the stock, and just let it ride out and see … Is that a good choice ?
Its in my RRSPs and I just wanted to know .
Thanks
Mark 2
January 3rd, 2008 at 8:09 am
Wireless Commentary
Hard Pill for 2008 and beyond: This wireless network equipment stuff is changing on us real fast and some still don’t have a clue that you cannot be in the hardware business and be successful going forward. Think TimeShares, Oversubscription, and Long Term Recurring Revenues for once and imagine you are a nimble and streamlined canadian Maple Syrup startup who has one chance to prove yourselves.
Let’s face it, Legacy is such a monumental pain in the ass, that only the most dramatic changes will move the needle and it is really easy to come up short in prescribed shake up dosage as a big 3 toed sloth-like public company that is as creatively constipated as they come. So, basically it doesn’t matter what is announced because anything we buy is killed and not harvested, and anything that could be announced would be enormously inconsequential as just another, BLAH, BLAH, BLAH, keeping up with the Bakrevski’s press release when all is said and done.
As someone who is keenly aware of the practical limitations that incumbent slothlike OEMs such as Nortel, Ericsson, Lucent and a few others propagate thereby limiting the market opportunities of themselves and their carrier customers alike, it is apparent that they should observe how their competition is effectively securing roots that will highlight today’s apathy tomorrow and lead to a capture of significant future market share by companies such as Samsung and Huawei. The complacent plodding progress of NT and others has opened a wide hole for competition at a crucial time where 2 tier architectures, sans BSCs, native IP backhaul, and rediculously small form factors, not to mention provisioning intelligence, etc. (all seem to be afterthoughts and non-critical items with Kludge bandaids if they are even addressed at all). Not to mention what SDR will be doing at the RAN - pushing and pulling wave forms to dynamically serve limitless clients accross a wide frequency range. The handwriting which says where things must go has been on the wall for so long but still the incumbent sit back and wallow in mediocrity. It’s just disgusting how the big boys collectively have failed to address the femto space with any intelligence leaving the door wide open for loads of startups and very strong Korean contenders to make NT look bad, as if they have no clue that the upstream trajectory from femto, to pico, micro, etc. will look very similar but with different PA. The switch to a psuedo software/services approach with the 3011 was a slight step in the right direction with no follow through. The least that could be done would be to provide ETH interface instead of a private labeling someone’s TDM to IP conversion box as another duct tape solution. My suggestion, is that NT is better off, broken up and restarted with wireless re-thoughting, to eliminate the obvious stagnancification and complacentors that come with an employee base slightly loaded with loafers that have no real sense of urgency or creativity. So basically, Mike needs to sack up and take off the kids gloves. He did not go far enough with the degree of transformation that will be necessary to right this sinking ship. Go Z, Go Baker, Go Expos. Literally. Clean sweep for all who are not willing to think outside of the ox. See, I bet you thought I was going to say “Box”. OK, I believe that people can change. You can all stay for now and I will out of the goodness of my heart give you 120 days to clean up and re-create your act, or I will be forced to bring in Ricardo Montalban Jr. and Vern Troyer who are not afraid to shake things up. Tick-Tock, Stick-Rock, - Again please take note of the out of ox thinking I have yet again displayed for your tootelidge. Sprechen?
Sincerely,
Letron Tsum Egnahc
PS- Please donate today to fight off BCLH, which is a growing disease that has become better known as Big Company Learned Helplessness.
Though thy post tis odd, tis a oddly righteous and sane mssg for those who art disruptive visionaries with an opportunity to transform a dinosaur into the canadian-macedonian telecom terminator.
January 3rd, 2008 at 5:01 pm
Bravo. Very Creative. Someone had to say it
January 3rd, 2008 at 6:01 pm
Wow! Dan, what was in that christmas present? Can I have some?
I think your point that the incumbent carriers and the incumbent equipment vendors suffer from the same malady is a good one.
Let’s see though. there has been a shakeout in the service providers (not complete yet), but no such shakeout in the equipment manufacturers (unless you count ALU, and I don’t think that counts). I wonder who will “get it” first? After all at&t & apples “iPhone” was at the top of the google zeitgeist this year, no?
I agree with your comment about SDR. I think l’etron sold those patents to ALU, no?
Kludge band-aids and duct tape is the stuff of an incumbent evergreen strategy. Mr Roese tried to make this point, and I don’t think it played well internally. I don’t think l’etron has it together to reincarnate itself outside the ox. Too afraid of getting gored. I think it is Tic-toc; Slippery rock, no?
Oh well. I hope you enjoy that christmas present and don’t get caught!