Nortel Going Green

By Mark Evans | Published: April 21, 2008

Kermit
Hey, Nortel’s going green!

Click here to watch CEO Mike Z. talk about the company’s effort to embrace the environmental movement. Nortel is among a number of companies attending Fortune Magazine’s Brainstorm: Green Conference this week in Pasadena, Ca.

Quick fact: Did you know that more than 50% of the world’s used computers are shipped to China where, for the most part, they are manually pulled apart for parts. This has been a huge problem for the people doing the disassembling and the surrounding environment.

More: Here’s an article from the Financial Post about how many businesses are becoming more green. For the Nortel press release, click here.

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  • Frank Burch

    So…people must really love CSCO….their ports are twice as expensive and they use twice as much electricity!

  • Goldmember

    But the difference is that folks at CSCO are an excellent marketing machine.

    The market really doesn't care what colour NT is, but the shareholders would certainly appreciate NT actually making some green, instead of going “green”.

    Fundamental question. “Sir, will this make people buy your products?”
    Another bandwagon to jump on…

  • sniffy
  • puddintane

    Betcha NT wil be the first to power their equipment with vegan hamsters running in biodegradable wheels only.

    Have any competitors yet thought to turn off vending machine lights or remove them altogether to save a buck or two? How about fancy fountains?

    Quick fact: I know that Nortel once threw countless tons of expensive, if admittedly “stale”, equipment into the plain old trash because they couldn't be bothered with recycling.

    The green grew mostly into the hands of a succession of (surprisingly Canadian, not American) CEOs like Dunn and Roth, who earned even far more than all the junk that wound up in the trash.

    P.S. Zafirovski predecessor Owens was once a military gringo in bed with Cheney, so….

  • Zzzzztupid

    is this guy for real as CEO. 40-50% less power is not true. I can think of a number of ways – this guy does not know what he s talking about .

    Question: are you making more sales if products use 50% less power than Cisco
    Answer: Er thats a great question and then some ramblng mumbo jumbo

    The green froggie picture on this page is a good image for Nortel CEO. Kind of looks like a jester on TV.

  • Notelhand

    All the green aside (not the red of the stock price, that sucks) what decision maker would take a chance on using Nortel when they can use the industry leader CISCO? I have never seen anyone being fired, demoted or their carries side railed by using the industry leader, even if the price is higher, way higher. But God forbid you use the second tier competitor (and that is truly what Nortel is at this point in time) and the project goes bad, people fix in on that as the reason and if you were the one to make the decision or your group was the one to make the decision you’re a** is grass.

    The longer Nortel goes on, the less likely I see them as ever recovering. Nortel can’t compete on price, China will undercut them at every turn. And price really is the only reason someone would choose the second tier competitor. Why would a decision maker risk his/her job?

    Good luck Nortel, but you really need to start showing the world you will survive. And that means sales. It is easy for a winner to keep winning, but it is hard for a looser to change attitudes and perspectives.

  • Onlooker

    The bills will mount for companies and customers with high energy consumption this summer and reduce profit margins as the economy slows. There is an initiative in the IEEE to autonegotiate down to 10/100 Mbps mode on ports that stay inactive or don't use the full 1000 Mbps because of high power consumption. I believe Marvell may already have devices which do this.

  • moosebump

    i'm kind of tired of the “no one ever got fired for buying” Cisco. Is that all decision makers care about? not getting fired?

    NT sells $11B of gear and services so clearly some decision makers are willing to take the risk!

  • Notelhand

    moosebump,

    You are right, Nortel is selling $11B, but to who? If a client has a large Nortel base, they are almost committed to continuing to service and add to that base; so Nortel has a customers that can only make major changes when they decide to re-vamp there entire (or major parts of) network.

    The real question is where is the Nortel growth going to come from? Who is going to step out and take a chance on Nortel? What is in it for them? Don’t fool yourself the sales reps are all too familiar with the idea of making the guy that choose equipment a hero in his/her company. All suppliers play that game.

    So what does Nortel have to compete with? It can only be price (more or less), and the reality is China will win on price every time.

    I want Nortel to win, but I am looking for solid evidence of that. Wall Street is far from convinced, and Nortel broadcast loud and clear that they will not be selling as much as they would hope for. Remember the BIG surprise negative number in Q4? All that said was we (Nortel) can’t sell enough product.

    You can dislike what I am saying, but it is true. Please prove me wrong.

  • Ed Smith

    Yes the CISCO lovers are stupid. A switch is a switch is a switch. A Cisco switch costs more to buy and then costs 3 times more each year for the electricity to power it, and if it uses 3 times the electricity to power it I can only imagine how much more electricity is wasted cooling all the extra that it is sucking to just sit and run.

    http://www.tolly.com/ts/2008/Nortel/POE/Tolly20…

  • puddintane

    “In today's environmentally conscious world”

    This green movement Tolly touts is, what, all of a week or two two old – ever since oil hit a record highl. If switches ran on gasoline that'd be a real issue, but I doubt. management gives a much of a hoot about their engineers having to take the bus to work, much less the hole in the ozone.

    Better yet, just outsource operations to China and India altogether, like (wink,wink) Nortel has already been doing.

  • Curious

    Cisco loses $2M order to ruthless Nortel energy efficiency calculator

    http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/27411

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