Comments on: Looking Back at Nortel’s M&A Spree

By: xBay

xBay — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 04:47:41 +0000

I have had first hand experience in some of the the accounts you mentioned (down to the code level). I would never claim that Bay routers were running without downtime. I would also completely disagree that the worlds vital networks in the late 90's were not running Cisco but Bay primarily.

Having said that Wellfeet/Bay routers could and should have been developed into something more innovative and competitive. But Nortel bought Bay (Dave House, do you sleep well?).

By: xBay

xBay — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 04:19:48 +0000

In the context of the time buying for example Clarify was a total stupidity and it was considered as such by the most employees I talked to at _that_ time.

The way Bay Networks was handled at _that_ time was an absolute stupidity as well, Just how clever was to label all the former Bay employees FDC (Former Data Company) and give it a "47" bar-code on their forehead,o-ps, on the badge.
I heard some AsiaPac execs quoting "bullshit routers".
My personal experience after a few good years at Bay was a very negative one: while native Nortel engineers were good, most of the managers and above were plain dumb if you wish. The higher the level the dumber.

It was Roth and Dunn (his CFO at the time) who started the downfall. The others just continued.

By: xBay

xBay — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 23:47:41 +0000

Having said that Wellfeet/Bay routers could and should have been developed into something more innovative and competitive. But Nortel bought Bay (Dave House, do you sleep well?).

By: xBay

xBay — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 23:19:48 +0000

By: less

less — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 14:15:01 +0000

In short – Nortel was an empire on massive amounts of paper only. Today the only thing that identifies it as a company at all are a few papers.

By: less

less — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 03:33:28 +0000

I bought the house when I started working at Nortel.

Nortel, the HOA, the neighborhood, coworkers, and even my marriage all first eagerly followed the same tired high school schtick about keeping up with the Joneses and being popular.

Doing so takes time, rehearsal and money. But it proves to be much work for most mere mortals who typicaly lack stamina, talent and personality, so one by one they all collapsed in sodden heaps, as predicted.

The odds have it that since Nortel is nothing more than a - literally - hollow facade of the Good Old Days it will fail despite the boob job its giving itself and the hybrid SUV it drives thats somehow supposed to win back former lovers and save the planet for our kids.

If people were smart they'd take Nortel as the template for how NOT to do any number of things but they won't.

By: felixmk

felixmk — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 00:44:09 +0000

OK, I'm stumped, what does this have to do with Nortel's mergers and acquisitions?

By: felixmk

felixmk — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 00:43:19 +0000

I believe Bill also “charmed away” another Nortel employee's wife. She worked for him. Look at the performance of Entrust versus its peers – that should tell you about Bill's business skills.

By: ExNtrl

ExNtrl — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 23:48:15 +0000

In terms of the Network purchase, go and read Bill Connor biography.

http://www.entrust.com/corporate/management/bil...

Excerpt from the biography
Before Conner joined Entrust, he held various senior executive positions at Nortel Networks, including president of Nortel Enterprise Networks and e-Business Solutions, where he successfully turned around the global $5 billion business. Conner also served as president of Nortel's first Enterprise Data Networks line of business, where he orchestrated Nortel's $9 billion acquisition of Bay Networks.
end of excerpt

If Bill was so stellar, why did he leave for Entrust?

By: TongueInCheek

TongueInCheek — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 18:24:50 +0000

There's $1.411 Billion of Goodwill on the Balance Sheet, most of it is associated with Carrier Networks. I wouldn't be surprised to see most of this written off in the Q4 filing.