From the June 19, 2006 issue of Information Week
http://www.informationweek.com/news/management/…

In 2003, Sprint tapped IBM Global Services to handle a number of key software development and IT management tasks, such as developing a Web services environment that would let Sprint rapidly provision new services to businesses and consumers. There were high hopes for the engagement, valued at $400 million over five years. Sprint CIO Michael Stout heralded it as the best way for the telecom company to “focus on areas of growth and innovation.” Sprint was counting on the deal as part of a plan to cut $2 billion in operating costs over two years.

Fast forward to 2006. Stout is no longer CIO, Sprint has merged with Nextel, and the company is accusing IBM in court of failing to achieve the promised productivity improvements and of concocting a scheme to “falsely bolster” its performance metrics.

Where did it go wrong? Sprint's internal accounting didn't properly value the work performed by the in-house IT staff, says a former Sprint IT worker who, along with about 1,000 of his colleagues, was “rebadged” to IBM as part of the deal. When those functions were turned over to a contractor, Sprint was hit with sticker shock and balked at the price for a number of projects meant to boost productivity and hit the goals in the contract. “No new projects were going through the pipeline,” says the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity and no longer works for either company. Two hundred or more top engineers also left, he estimates, amid the confusion and lack of projects.

From the June 19, 2006 issue of Information Week
http://www.informationweek.com/news/management/…

In 2003, Sprint tapped IBM Global Services to handle a number of key software development and IT management tasks, such as developing a Web services environment that would let Sprint rapidly provision new services to businesses and consumers. There were high hopes for the engagement, valued at $400 million over five years. Sprint CIO Michael Stout heralded it as the best way for the telecom company to “focus on areas of growth and innovation.” Sprint was counting on the deal as part of a plan to cut $2 billion in operating costs over two years.

Fast forward to 2006. Stout is no longer CIO, Sprint has merged with Nextel, and the company is accusing IBM in court of failing to achieve the promised productivity improvements and of concocting a scheme to “falsely bolster” its performance metrics.

Where did it go wrong? Sprint's internal accounting didn't properly value the work performed by the in-house IT staff, says a former Sprint IT worker who, along with about 1,000 of his colleagues, was “rebadged” to IBM as part of the deal. When those functions were turned over to a contractor, Sprint was hit with sticker shock and balked at the price for a number of projects meant to boost productivity and hit the goals in the contract. “No new projects were going through the pipeline,” says the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity and no longer works for either company. Two hundred or more top engineers also left, he estimates, amid the confusion and lack of projects.

They sadly underestimate the traffic and the number of other boxes they need to accomidate. As well even if they have their act togeather thay usually have very little in the way of KPIs to prove it.

I only have experience with Spatial, but they could not cut it in one major network and were ripped and replaced. (Frankly it was a PoS with no prayer in the RAN). I can't speak to the others, but I do know boxes like Sonus are highly suspect in certain applications because they cannot fully co-exist in mixed technology network.

anyways, i appreciated your post because you were specific. you named startups and products. i wish everyone who is trying to make an argument did that.
because when i read something like “i believe NT is well positioned to take advantage of growth in new areas” i want to scream BS, BS! name those areas, how positions (what products, services, etc. is it going to provide and when), etc, etc.
so thanks for some concrete examples.

- Starent (startup) was able to develop the best carrier grade PDSN and drive Nortel and Lucent from the market. Nortel and ALU now resell their product. They are now attacking GGSN market.
- Spatial (startup) was able to develop a better carrier grade R4 call server, win contracts with T Mobile, and were then bought by Alcatel
- Camiant (startup) has cornered the market on policy servers for carriers and Nortel now sells their box
- Airvana (startup) provides all CDMA EVDO basestation and RNC subsystems to Nortel and Motorola

This all happened in the last 10 years and all these products are right in the middle of the networks of huge global carriers. Back in the mid-90's, no one could break into this market – Nortel, Lucent, ALcatel, Ericsson were invincible as they were the only ones who could develop such products.

I don't count them out, but they are not up to a match with HP/EDS, IBM or MSFT unless they buy Oracle

A GPOS is deployed where RTOS is appropriate.. Threaded models are developed where event driven software is called for. Non deterministic implemetations are sold as deterministic. KPIs are non existant. In short, all the best CoTS hardware in the world will not make up for a crappy application.

Nortel drank the Kool-Aid and started developing crappy software. Hopefully they have learned their lesson, but only time will tell.

Did anyone happen to catch the management and strategy changes coming at Cisco ? Sounds like it will be Nortel/IBM/Microsoft versus Cisco versus HP.

http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/27754

The change in culture and direction at Cisco also facilitates a change in the way it views its ecosystem partnerships as well, Kerravala says. Cisco sees itself as the center of that universe with ecosystem partners surrounding and supporting it.

The company must now adopt a support role of its own and follow the lead of its IT ecosystem partners as it charts a new course beyond its traditional networking boundaries.

“Cisco has a history of growing up with an ecosystem around it to support it,” Kerravala says. “Traditional IT is ecosystem led. It integrates into what they do. It's a different mindset.”