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While clearly greedy (more correctly 'entitled') their far greater flaw was they were incompetent.

Nortel would be infinitely better off had they hired a 'greedy' but competent CEO that turned the company around. Imagine a Nortel that now was stable/growing, had a coherent business strategy and a CEO who pocketed a couple 100million in the process (out of 10 billion in stock appreciation).

Clearly a brilliant CEO can make a huge difference (Gerstner at IBM, Jobs at Apple (round II), …). In general under good leadership the people prosper, under bad they suffer. (You can find that implicitly in the bible if you'd like – it pretty much is the history of the Jewish people.)

This is were the entitlement comes from: a great CEO creates 100 billions in wealth and pockets 100 millions -> A CEO makes 100 millions -> a CEO *deserves* millions. Dropping 'great' (or even 'competent') changes an arguable proposition to an obscene one.

One could argue that no employee is worth that much (it is rather surreal) and this blog would be full of complaints about the CEO remuneration, at least it would be a small percentage of the value created. 50 million to destroy a company is an awful 'investment'.

And they are the worst kind of incompetent. For example, I know that I am not competent to do brain surgery – so I know not to. MikeZ is not competent to drive a strategic refocusing of a business, but doesn't know this or even care.

And he is too arrogant to think to learn. He has undoubtedly read Gerstner's book on turning around IBM and completely ignored it. (FYI – it is a very interesting read in the context of the Nortel debacle.)

And, and, and …

His focus on wireless was actually very blurry, since he failed to see that LTE would be the dominant 4G standard, even after the signs clearly emerged. A casual observer of publicly available information on the internet would have recognized the dominance of LTE, but all we heard for the longest time was WiMAX, WiMAX, and more WiMAX. If he listened to experienced and wise technology advisors, he would have realized that WiMAX was the wrong pony to bet on much earlier in the race.

A few years ago a home reno company did a crap job on my kitchen. Turns out they were a fly-by-night operation, and the guys hastily disappeared from the Yellow Pages, only to reopen under a different name weeks later.

Fast forward to the ICT Advisory group…familiar faces, new company same, same bang-up job with the same set of hammers?

The sale of LOBs/product lines is inevitable to feed the hunger creditors. Nortel reports Q1 next week, so some news on sales may be announced. I'm betting more layoffs will also be announced.

Nortel never meets a schedule. Restructuring is no exception.

For months past Nortel Networks of Canada has been promising anyone who'll listen (and there are fewer and fewer of them with every passing day) that the company's much-vaunted restructuring plan would be unveiled and implemented this month. Now it seems that this promise is just one more example of wishful thinking winning out over painful reality, writes Martyn Warwick.

The same filing also shows that the sacking of 3,200 of Nortel's workers back in February was but the “first phase” of a programme of further job cuts that will be implemented “across the globe.” In other words the axe, already bloody, is set to swing and swing again.

Axe? Its more like a blunt 2×4 spiked with bent, rusty nails.

http://web20.telecomtv.com/pages/?newsid=44904&…

So what? Nortel is out of game for every field except Optical. Nortelers can only sit side by looking for others playing.

For Nortelers, be preparing for a big layoff down the road again.

not in terms of Nortel being out, but in terms of who was selected…. Ericsson and ALU again, and Huawuei!

There's no Nortel news any more. We have slipped under the radar for the media.
There won't be any buyers. Just more downhill, more lost sales, execs getting more huge bonusses, more layoffs, more ex-employees living rough, driving taxis, doing odd jobs.
If it's possible to drag it out Nortel know how to do it. Total misjudgement all along the line.

Duh. Now I finally get it – time travels more slowly at the speed of Optics (= Light = Hyperconnectivity). Thats why a Nortel Week is consistently longer than that of yer average, dim, primate-stump of a troll earthling's.

Mass increases with velocity and reaches infinity at the speed of light .Thats why Nortel is inert – sorry: a Recognized Leader, the ultra-super Heavyweight in All Matters Telecom – to Infinity and Beyond.

The Kicker is that Nortel uses 40%-60% Less Energy to reach these Dizzying Achievements. defying all conventional Laws of Physics.
(And those of us, you know, ordinary, dim, primate-stump-of-a-troll earthlings.)

Buy Nortel now.

Or maybe Lazard is doing the job they are being paid for.

The unrepentant KoolAid advocates have not forgotten our forecasts even when swimming against the tide. They lie.

They cared little if they cost readers, all they want is happy talk but there is no happy talk at bankrupt zero.

How can they sarcastically call us “visionaries” when there were over 101 heads up. This is hardly worthy of flatter given the obvious.

KoolAid fabricators who wanted to execute the bearer of bad news neglect past arguments like the restatement deadlines within a day, triple profits the split second they were announced, Cendant analogies, reverse split longetivity, etc.,etc., etc., to calling us “self proclaimed prophets” today while they have always been dead wrong.

No bad news for them or expect a rude reply than argue any point.

So far our commentary has proven to be somewhat of a guiding light, contrary to even the analysts and media from what Nortel fed them over the years. We saw the obvious.

I still hold a great deal of the obvious suspect, like so many crooks still there “hard to find” and “remaining silent under their counsel's advise” as fraud trials loom on both sides of the border that neither Nortel nor Frank Dunn were able to dismiss on jurisdictional grounds, keeping fraud bonuses of all things except for the plea bargained board who timely resigned while denying obvious red flags for cash than traditional options they approved and received, board members still sit on the voting audit committee to approve pay after ultimatum fraud settlement they tanked through mega revisions that doubled and for even future periods as they extended accounting repair, downplaying revisions like their bankruptcy where they get bonuses to loot the corpse circumventing creditors while cutting gagged employees severances, with a green CEO who defrauds from day one to promotes his criminally charged inexperienced pal over a proven veteran, their reluctance to chase past officers even after repeated requests, selling assets to live another day or printing billions questionably before loopholes closed, etc.,etc.etc. …we can go on forever, like how endless does it have to get… Neptune, Putian, Huawei WiMax, buying opportunities, 3 to 5, (way too exhaustive to list pages of endless contradicitons /lies to derisking and monetizing while deferring and stalling…endless I tell ya….)
No visionary here, just the obvious .

Today, the relentless KoolAid advocates believe they will restructure and this guy above wants to know about my past accomplishments which is hysterical. As temped as I am to brag, I'd rather ask him if anyone has told him yet today

At the same time Nortel apparently “remains active in developing business cases and responding to proposals for new business.” Nonetheless, the most likely outcome for this once-great company is that it will be broken-up and auctioned off at fire sale prices

We see a company that cannot pay its bills and is repudiating contracts that it entered into with suppliers. Who on earth would want to do business with such a comaopny except on a “cash-in-advance” basis.

“Nortel will not be hosting a teleconference/audio webcast.”

Q109 will reveal their post bankruptcy decline.

One might expect they would take this opportunity to discuss their progress and options transparently presenting a contingent and preliminarily plan if they truly sought to restructure.

Lacking bravery by playing mute is not forthright, even if they are anticipating delay to bust

I think its more no one cares….. At least you fixed your diarrhea issue proto

that's NoTell's excuse, customers, creditors and others care. your very 2 first words are misleading

Now work on your fixations with defecation, their are disgusting and rude

You're kidding right? Do you honestly think that Mark is running this blog out of the goodness of his heart?
TongueInCheek
==========
re
You have to ask yourself
How long has Mark Evans been running this blog?
He has started that blog long time ago as I remember. Nortel was in a good shape then and there was lots of good news. So my assumption is, Mark wanted to broadcast the Good News about Nortel.
last 5 years, since the fraud accusations in 2004, NT stock and company has been going down to the drain and the only crook who posts here is you, accusing others of misinformation.
I will post that link showing all your lies and propaganda posted here to mislead public. We are not stupid, you know. We know how to find all your posts.
http://disqus.com/people/TongueInCheek/#main

“being an optimist” is not an excuse for you
You are proven being a crook multiple times.
I will defend Mark when I see stupid accusations like yours and post critics about his choices when I find it uplifting.
That's what grown ups with integrity do.

BB – a question.

It strikes me that at good way to judge a system is how it selects its leaders (the French revolution being a good example of a bad example so to speak).

Looking at the GE system – how on earth did MikeZ make it to nearly the top?

- To be blunt, while likely not stupid, he doesn't seem particularly intelligent.
- While priding himself as a leader has no apparent leadership skills.
- His preferred management style (cloistered away like an emperor surrounded by 3rd rate sycophants) hardly seems effective.
- He has no developed business instinct.
- I presume he is good at giving the 'right answer' to his superiors.
- And he clearly is an uncritical 'true believer' in the way.
(Perhaps the last two points are the 'advantages' of his limited intelligence?)

Am I missing something? Are the last two points enough?

It seems to me that someone like MikeZ (or Hackney) would be successful in the GE environment is a pretty damning commentary on it.

Good question and no, you are not missing anything.

The only thing the GEnsters needed to do (Z, Nardelli, Imelt, et al) was to please Jack and the way to do that was to be a good hatchet men. The way to the top was to be even better at cutting the throats of your co-workers; something Jack encouraged.

These are the WORST examples of corporate greed/management – bunch of soul-less industrial and financial engineers that left nothing but dead bodies in their destructive path….–bb