There’s speculation and then there’s out and out dreaming, which is what Alex Lewis must be doing on Network World when he talks about Microsoft buying Nortel.
“MS could purchase Nortel , disassemble and sell off the parts it doesn’t want. The acquisition would give MS a true end to end solution, like Cisco, but with a much larger installed base. Given Nortel’s stock price, MS could buy the core business, sell off the undesirable pieces and make this a very attractive acquisition. This wouldn’t have much consumer impact, but the SMB through Enterprise market could be profound.”
My take: Highly unlikely, especially since Microsoft is going to need lots of time to integrate Yahoo if the $45-billion hostile bid is successful.
Thor I own both Cisco and Nortel and we all know which ones tanking so fast that it is at penny stock levels in 2002. As for you its probably the Titanic and we all know where that went. So people like you will say anything, do anything to show value, just hoping and praying that someone takes you out of your misery, get off the boat to safety.
Come on if Cisco makes 70% margin then go get them on your own. Why burden Microsoft and think things will change overnight. Nortel is no saint either on margins - lets face it Cisco executes much better. So do leaders like Microsoft, IBM and host of other companies, not the crap that probably goes on at Nortel.
Nbody wants losers. And we all know the expertise with which Nortel killed most of ts acquisitions. So about money exactly my point. Nobody buys sick racehorses. They are put down and that is what will happen in 6 mths to a year.
SpinMachine
all the yay's for a merger sound like desperate nortel people looking to prolong the inevitable.
SpinMachine
Thor, listen to your rambiling because its nonense. Microsoft does not need to acquire to get into the infrastructure business because its not a core area for them. Secondly why lock into one vendor when they can negotiate and partner with any vendor willing to hop into bed with them.
Cisco has 80% you say. Who cares about Nortel's 2% and how do you think its challenge when there is no leading edge product. Probably you are parroting internal nortel spin. Micorosft already has partnerships with Cisco and Alcatel. Once it has what it needs they will end the partnership. They also do not need a double OEM with Polycom and others OEM via Nortel.
there are no friends in this business - hopefully you realize that by now.
Thor
Ya, I guess your right, Microsoft does not want another $8 billion or so. Let Cisco just have the market with inferior products but great marketing. Obviously you own Cisco stock and don't want to see if fall further. Let's face it, putting MS application inteligence into the data infrastructure would put Cisco on defense and finally give CIO a reason to stop paying John Chambers 70% margins. This is not about friends, this is about money - hopefully you realize that by now.
Thor
Microsoft should buy NT. Convergence and UC ( Unified Communications / SOA ) are the next hot items for enterprise customers. Today MS is the market leader in enterprise applications. Nortel is a leader in communications. UC represents the synergies of applications and communications. Nortel would give MS a play in the infrastructure space and the combination would allow the network infrastructure to become Microsoft application aware and deliver a value proposition to customers that Cisco couldn't match. Given the L2/L3 switching market is a $19B market of which Cisco currently owns 80% +, a Nortel hardware + MS application solution would more than challenge Cisco for those dollars. Additionally, what the smaller players like Foundry and others don't have is Nortels footprint in the enterprise and the significant global sales force. The synergies of a Nortel & Microsoft combination are tremendous. Microsoft should realize that Cisco is no friend. Why only go after part of the pie when you can, for a cheap price, go after the whole pie.
SpinMachine
guess he must have recently come back from Colombia with a good stash. for 10 illion (5 billion and 4 billion debt) you could buy 4 or 5 leading cos and build a Nortel.
protosphere
Needless to say this would require approval even if remotely entertained.
Numbers they extended repair remain unreliable so what would they be buying? Would management part with their cash cow albeit shareholders white elephant in any acquisition.
They have enough questions and disclosure to deal with than entertain opening numbers worse every time counted to a possible acquisition.
Heck, MSFT the monopolistic bully is having enough trouble hostile acquiring Yahoo these days while their stock is beaten down taking their bid directly to their shareholders to circumvent management,. And Yahoo I suspect will rebound competing with successful Google where I can not say the same for NT amidst its peers it can't even be compared to anymore let alone the worsening trend,
I would also suspect MSFT would be much keener in acquiring profitable or growing companies which NT runs contrary. Juggling acquiring a company losing money is not their style in my view even if they take a radical twist from PC software to large scale telecom installations.
The talk is even exponentially more absurd than Cisco acquiring Nortel who reiterated they didn't want even a part of them. John Chambers said there are many yesteryear darlings simply gone today, NT's Mike even claimed you grow or perish like a plant and NT is not growing lacking miracles.
Here is a good post I felt comes from a highly respected /big business thinking poster on Yahoo I felt was simple, and to the point as always:
"Pay around $7 billion for the company, assume $3 billion in debt and God knows what pension obligations. Sell the unwanted parts for maybe $2-3 billion. Add NT's $3 billion cash and the purchase is a net cost of $5 billion plus the pensions. To get what? Ownership of something you already sell.
Look at Microsoft's alliances. The work with everybody under the sun. They're not shopping for acquisitions, they're using their partners to their advantage. No way they buy NT."
Eric L
OT - Cisco recently released the following in regards to their phones:
Cisco on Wednesday delivered patches to plug multiple overflow and denial of service vulnerabilities.
In an advisory Cisco said multiple IP phone devices running the Skinny Client Control Protocol (SCCP) firmware were impacted. The vulnerabilities range from arbitrary code executions on a phone to forced phone reboots.
Most of these advisories carry high ratings. As for the CVEs here’s the list: CVE-2008-0530, CVE-2008-0526, CVE-2008-0527, CVE-2004-2486, CVE-2008-0528, CVE-2008-0529 and CVE-2008-0531. Among those CVE-2008-530 gets a perfect 10 score from Cisco. Here are the details:
Cisco Unified IP Phone 7940, 7940G, 7960 and 7960G devices running SCCP and SIP firmware contain a buffer overflow vulnerability in the handling of DNS responses. A specially-crafted DNS response may be able to trigger a buffer overflow and execute arbitrary code on a vulnerable phone. This vulnerability is corrected in SCCP firmware version 8.0(8) and SIP firmware version 8.8(0).
Separately, Cisco patched its Unified Communications Manager, which was vulnerable to SQL injection attacks (CVE-2008-0026). In an advisory, Cisco gave these flaws lower base scores.
Can someone please advise if Nortel sees any challanges to their 11XX or 2XXX series phones.
Regards,
Eric L.
Doppelgänger
I want the same water that guy is drinking.
Nortelhand
We could only be so lucky. Come on Bill Gates, buy Nortel and put us all out of our misery.
Microsoft to Buy Nortel? You Don’t Say!
There’s speculation and then there’s out and out dreaming, which is what Alex Lewis must be doing on Network World when he talks about Microsoft buying Nortel.
“MS could purchase Nortel , disassemble and sell off the parts it doesn’t want. The acquisition would give MS a true end to end solution, like Cisco, but with a much larger installed base. Given Nortel’s stock price, MS could buy the core business, sell off the undesirable pieces and make this a very attractive acquisition. This wouldn’t have much consumer impact, but the SMB through Enterprise market could be profound.”
My take: Highly unlikely, especially since Microsoft is going to need lots of time to integrate Yahoo if the $45-billion hostile bid is successful.
Technorati Tags: Microsoft, Nortel