Nortel to Outsource QA, PV?

By Mark Evans | Published: May 1, 2008

Someone whispered in my ear that Nortel has signed a contract to outsource most of its product testing (quality assurance, performance validation) to IBM. Apparently, Nortel gets access to IBM’s reseller network for its enterprise products. Anyone want to confirm?

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  • http://silent.shh Silent Partner

    Funny. What PV? ;)

    Heard the same thing. About 1800 people world wide will be outsourced. Not sure as
    to the groups in so called centers of excellence (i.e. Netas).

  • Observer

    so IBM would have control over whether a product gets released or not ? they could delay all of Nortel's releases while slowly encroaching on Nortel's business with their own equipment. Why not just sell all of enterprise to IBM outright and go back to becoming a carrier company.

  • Former NT PV

    As someone who worked for 10 years at Nortel in PV all I can say is: What the hell are they thinking? There's enough friction between testers and designers as it is! This will be a catastrophe, as is pretty much everything Nortel has done since about when I joined the company!

    Sell, sell, sell!

  • NT

    it was said this will happens no later than early of 2009…ridiculous that IBM already had much early design phase work, now it will have PV, so what Nortel would do?

  • ?

    What is NT doing ??
    - Design outsource to Wipro
    - PV outsource to IBM

    What is left ? Management, sales?

  • http://www.google.com Blinking Lights

    I think that if Nortel outsourced its executives it might save a lot more money.

  • NT

    CEO, CTO, CFO, CxO still in house not sold.

  • norteilte

    Ya, it is confirmed. It will be officially announced tomorrow.

  • Another Nortelite for tonight.

    Yea….its almost confirmed ….we'll know by tomorrow afternoon :)

  • Another Nortelite for tonight.

    hey whats gonna happen to us testing team? ?

  • another nortelite

    hey.. hold on… lets wait for an official information/intimation/confirmation.. and lets not get carried away by speculation and assumptions and gossip. even if it happens so, it might really be a good strategic decision for both Nortel and IBM. you will never know.. what looks weird or bad at first sight, would normally turn out to be far signted and a good… or atleast hope so.
    so, let us wait and watch how things unveil and only after that we anyways will have a final say – on whether we want to stay back with NT/IBM or anywhere else…
    so… just lets hang on.. and see how things unveil… and not panick…

  • norteilte

    It is happening for sure, no doubt..
    But hope it is happening for the good …

  • ExCSCnNowNT

    Dont worry. It'll be like IS outsourced to CSC then when the service charges get outrageuos, it'll be insourced again.

  • NewBlue

    This is going to be an unmitigated disaster.

    Nortel R&D already has an extremely difficult time with multi-site product development (engineering in one location and PV in another) before this new move. This is not going to make it any better. One of the important keys in all of this is going to be detailed engineering documentation. There simply won't be enough time granted to get this done. There will be plenty of lip service, but no true documentation, at least not what's going to be required.

    I predict this will be one of the worst decisions to come out of the executive leadership since they've assumed power. They will save a few bucks in the short term; they will lose money hand-over-fist in the longer term, due to increased PV costs that were either never predicted or simply ignored, and loss of accounts due to late deliverables.

  • http://www.163.com Tina

    Can ALL Nortel be sold to IBM?

  • no need

    What about RnD development team.. whats the future..will it be IBM/TCS/Infy/Wipro/Sasken/(or any start up?)…

  • NewBlue

    “What about RnD development team.. whats the future”

    Cheapest payroll. India or China.

  • ex-nt2

    its already happening. people have been re-vectored. Optical 5000 ring a bell. great finternal anfare to outsource to flex then insourced since it was pathethic. only the original team was disbande. hurrah! ibm is hiring but low end fresh grads or 2 years experience. that cannot match the years of experience out here.

    what do they expect the work flow to be. Nortel – Wipro / Infy – Nortel – IBM – Nortel – Wipro / Infy – Nortel for development activties? Sounds like long hours, very lengthy cycle time not to mention a whole bunch of frustrated engineers and managers.

    I am sure some quick talking exec looks like a hero in Nortel. Only he wont be around to face the music when this whole thing goes bad.

  • many

    My opinion is that it does not matter.

    Nortel PV is barely functional right now. There is no agility or flexibility in PV. PV is pushed to the wall for dates and the process for changes or bug fixes (and there are a lot) is so cumbersome In the current environment that it takes months to get even the most basic stuff done. Customers will not notice that the quality of the PV engineers has been dumbed down.

    What I want to know is how come all of those six-sigma process black belts couldn't make a go of it, and in fact have made it *worse*?

  • -

    Here is the plan:
    IBM will take over Nortel’s PV low cost centers
    North American (NA) PV mgmt will stay in tack
    NA PV functional testing will move to design.
    NA PV system testing will move to IBM.
    A few of the top NA PV engineers will keep their jobs.

  • NewBlue

    Well, it does matter. The logistics of having PV sited in a separate location thousands of miles and multiple time zones away from the engineers is demonstrably problematic and is not a new development. To continue down this path is simply maniacal and another step down the path to failure.

    Also, PV is not dysfunctional. Is there room for improvement in how bugs are managed? Sure. However, tracking and fixing CRs isn't the problem. The methods employed for generating the schedule are. This comes back to management: top to bottom, side to side. Unless and until management (line managers, directors, PLM, etc.) begins to involve the engineers who actually know what it's going to take to get the job done in the process of generating the schedule, the problems with “dates” is never going to go away.

    And while customers may not notice a change in quality with respect to PV, they will notice that the products will take longer and longer to deliver as a result of the inherent problems solving engineering issues long-distance. Quality has never been that much of an issue; on time delivery has.

    Outsourcing PV is not a step in the right direction. As was mentioned earlier, the clowns that came up with this idea and moved forward with it won't be here when the massive collapse occurs resulting from this horrendous decision. They'll be off on their next corporate remake, spending the millions the Nortel BoD saw fit to grant them.

  • contractor

    I believe it was a design call: the design fully recognized the size of the desaster that is going to happen after PV outsourced.

  • plastered

    Sick Sigma Six pink belts.
    What a betty crocker waste of time.

  • Observer

    PV is a necessary evil that can be done by lower cost centers. What's critical is the planning of PV and coverage. Most of that will stay in NA from what I am told. Everyone here forgot to mention what Nortel gets in exchange for this – full access to IBM's sales channels and IBM pushing Nortel's solutions to their customers as well. Cisco should be very worried by the Nortel/IBM/Microsoft partnership.

  • NewBlue

    “PV…can be done by lower cost centers.”

    I guess we'll see.

    But I could not disagree more. Planning and coverage will be critical, to be sure. However, reproducing the problem found at the PV center by the engineers without the resources to reproduce them is going to slow the release down to a crawl. It's already bad…now it's going to be worse. All those channels and product pushes aren't going to mean a thing if there's nothing to push because of the company's inability to resolve PV issues in a timely, efficient manner.

  • Another Nortel Watcher

    I'm going to hazard a guess that the geniuses who cooked this one up have never participated in any large system software development. This is a ridiculous plan that will add significant cost and delay to Nortel's output.

    This is just another example that the strength of leadership that made Nortel a force to be reckoned with is long gone, replaced by internal and external industry leftovers. Such a shame.

  • many

    ANW – My guess is your guess comes from experience. My experience lately w/Nortel is that they have all but given up on anything but basic PV and are (like their competitors) delivering a product that needs significant integration effort once it reaches the customer network.

    This trend has been going on for a while. A lot of network owners are having to pay the price for cheap NEs by having to do their own PV. Honestly it is not as bad with tier one equipment vendors, a little worse with tier two vendors and orders of magnitude more painful with tier three vendors. Nortel is not the worst, but they are clearly not the best.

  • Another Nortel Watcher

    Many – good guess. I see a cancer spreading across a lot of the tier 1 vendors. I'll label that cancer as an acceptance of 'being adequate'. At a time when the Chinese vendors are encroaching aggressively from one direction and non-traditional solutions and suppliers are encroaching from another direction, companies like Nortel need to feel a passion to be the best and to win. Instead of operating with an attitude of 'you get what you pay for', Nortel needs an attitude of 'you earn what you fight for'.

  • http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/tor/649999147.html Nortel Insider (the only one)

    It's a business decision, nothing to do with CMMI or technical reasons….cost focused.

    The executive sponsor for this project is David Ayers. A CTO guy…which means he is a looser.

    For CDMA Malzahn is the target…..for Lab (GLO GXX Lab Operations) seek out Wayne McFall who by the way got his daughter (16 year old high school drop out) hired through Calian…no conflict of interest here folks….just business as usual in the MIKE Z era.

    Please post the other suscpects. Thanks.

  • exnt2

    heard this move has taken place or in the process. any idea if people are being transferred to IBM have to sign paperwork? if IBM lays them off will their severance bridge experience at Nortel or only the time at IBM. That would be really screw the employees over since they would only get a few weeks severance. wow!

  • http://www.nortel.com ruprtor

    Transfer to IBM is already under way and some people have already been transferred. No special paperwork so that employees can be screwed anytime. Most will get laid off with the outsourced jobs going to India.

  • Guyfranko

    I spoke to my buddy in Nortel Ottawa PV team and most PV team will be laid off. Some will be moving to IBM, and others will be outsourced to lower cost countries China, India or the cheapest possible destination.

  • agent99

    Here is an extra bit for ya. Nortel has already spent many months/years training little guys from India to do testing. Now, those guys from India are being chucked for the IBM guys in India, who aren't familiar with the technology at all. Nortel expects that the current North American employees will be thrilled to train their replacements. Nortel has done this before, but they offered retention bonuses to the folks who bit their tongues and trained the new guys. This time there is no talk of bonuses, just shut up and do it….. and be happy about it.

  • Limeoid.

    Life's a bitch and then you die.

  • http://msn.com froggy

    These comments demonstrate high moral level of Nortel emploees.
    To cheer them up I would add that there is a plan already to cut the last verification guy in Nortel in June 2009.

  • http://msn.com froggy

    These comments demonstrate high moral level of Nortel emploees.
    To cheer them up I would add that there is a plan already to cut the last verification guy in Nortel in June 2009.

  • Grumpy

    Sigh. I wish someone would get rid of Z and slappy.

  • Grumpy

    Sigh. I wish someone would get rid of Z and slappy.

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