The New Smaller Nortel

By Mark Evans | Published: May 15, 2009

Nortel Hq
If you’re looking for how far down Nortel has come in recent years, it’s the company’s corporate headquarters in suburban Toronto.

During the telecom boom, Nortel occupied a sprawling campus in Brampton, Ont. where thousands of employees worked. The campus was sold to Rogers a few years ago for $100-million.

These days, Nortel’s headquarters are located in a small office building not far from the airport. If you’re driving down Highway 427, you might miss it if you blink.

Technorati Tags:

[Slashdot] [Digg] [Reddit] [del.icio.us] [Facebook] [Technorati] [Google] [StumbleUpon]
This entry was posted in Financials. Bookmark the permalink. Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL.
  • sick_sigma

    Enterprise is closing down several sales offices as we speak.

  • Moose_Chaser

    It's a terrible office !

    Small, cramped, poor location (surrounded by food warehouses).

    You can't even fart without someone hearing you.

    MC

  • InTheField

    Yes, but most sales offices are nothing like they had been years ago. With the move towards teleworking, these spaces have a couple of offices, a conference room, maybe a demo room and that's about it. They seem to be barely used these days.

  • melenith

    Can you clarify it please ?

  • silentwatcher

    They have closed down the office in Alpharetta. ppl are wfh now.

  • Nortel watcher

    That's because most teleworkers have their mind on finding a job, never mind the customer since the expectation is that the customer will likely not buy. I believe the channel partners are doing all the sales work these days.

  • TexasBahr

    Its also interesting that that tall building in Richardson is rarely populated by more than 20% (my estimate). Each floor is like a ghost town.
    Granted, that may be because many are working from home but if that's the case why in the world dont they consider that the norm and sell the building. I suspect that its mostly empty due to layoffs.

  • yes4aapl

    They are closing R&D campus in Ottawa and preparing to move into abounded buildings at Kirkwood_Baseline
    What was their size? 2 mill square feet?
    http://archive.ottawabusinessjournal.com/archiv…

  • ntpurgatory

    It's definitely a depressing place to go to with so many floors with the shells of employees. Some people still have items in their cube, so you can't tell if they are working from home, laid off, or left the company. No one ever comes by and takes down the name tag, etc. Certainly in Richardson, they could collapse the lab into the Tower or vice-versa and sell the other building…

  • ntpurgatory

    Shouldn't use speakerphone for farts in cubedom… ;-)

  • ntpurgatory

    Bingo. It's much easier to hold phone interviews at home that in a cube…

  • exnt2

    the new brampton location will be on sale too shortly. when there is no nortel what use are those cushy exective offices.

  • InTheField

    What are left of us are concerned about our customers, especially our existing customers. And of course new customers are hard to come by, duh, but there are those of us still here. Call us what you will, but to maintain our jobs and creditbility with our customers, no matter where we land, we still work. Of course we are looking for jobs, but we've been teleworking for years, well before Ch 11 and years before that. Years ago, I don't believe the thought was, “Oh, let's have them telework so it's easier to find a new job.”

  • protosphere

    There are 2 other identical buildings beside Nortel's with their own company logos. These 3 buildings are located on a street filled with lower rise Industrial units (The lower West Mall). Nortel is located close to the airport and close to downtown Toronto, midway for both. Perhaps ideally located for all the finangling and litigation that supercedes dramatically declined business activity today.

    I guess they don't have to travel as far to file court papers or get bonus plans drawn up, closer to banks the way they printed Nortel paper, and they may as well have moved right downtown for all the customers that visit today=)

    One shipper for every 3 or 4 terminals. Floors with lights turned off, as they wind down operations. There isn't even anyone walking around at night anymore. A far cry form their former glory. Ironically, this was influenced by wanting to look bigger by buying losing revenues.

    I think these premises are rented than owned unlike their old Brampton Headquarters acreage

    Exposes their slide into oblivion which is no longer unthinkable but a rapidly materializing reality.

    Bankrupt, lacking credibility, and struggling to liquidate assets than struggling to move product as the the bonus incentive ironically remains.

  • NortelTragedy

    The lights are off on the building signage as well … sad. I recall when first employed, when 75 was still a 4 lane road, taking photos of the building to share with my family back home. But, such is life, the strong survive.

  • fatzoff

    I could only wish that the Z man would slit his wrist with a Motorola Razr and then jump out his top floor window.

  • NTblinker

    As per nortel press, they are preparing themselves to open a new GNOC center in Bangalore, India. So does anyone knows how many jobs will be transfered to this location? And it looks like Nortel management selects restructuring option vs selling off some enterprise units, one more time.

    Also today there would be a discussion via a court meeting about sale of the Calgary campus, what would be the results? Any news?

  • InTheRoundEye

    Lot's of settlement offers by Nortel listed on EPIQ:

    Hewlett-Packard
    Anixter Inc.
    Alpha Network USA
    Airspan Networks
    Amphenol Corporation
    Emerson
    Sanmina-SCI Corporation
    Zyxel Communications
    Jabil Circuit
    Audiocodes Ltd
    Starent Networks
    Embarq Logistics

    Could this mean something???? I doubt it…

  • Teleguy

    Ahh, this is important why? Can you please look to the Nortel twitter feed for the stories that will likely give more substance to Nortel's story than the smaller HQ buildings they are now occupying. Obviously, a massively downsized Nortel means less office space, so keeping elaborate Toronto offices for show does not make financial or political sense. Is that shocking to Torontoians? Anyway, the real business of Nortel gets done in the R&D facilities, not the Toronto HQ.

  • dljvjbsl

    Kirkwood and Baseline do not meet. Do you mean Merivale and baseline in the Meriline Court buildings?

    They had the”What Do You Want The Internet To Be” sign up there fro years after the bubble popped. I used to see it every six months during my dental visits. Then one visit it was gone.

    DMS moved there from the Corkstown building in 1976. DMS 100, 200, 30, 250, 1 and notably 10 were all put together the. That building created most of the wealth that Nortel squandered later

  • Norterrible

    The sign of a good R&D team is one that provides better value than their competitors, which is not the case with Nortel anymore. Anyone can design a product when product cost is not an issue. The problem is when they cannot sell the product because it is priced way out of range of what their intended customers are willing to pay. Nortel has always over-designed their products so with increased competition of similar technologies and a much lower cost, they have seen their market share rapidly plummet along with their revenues and more importantly their margins. Their 40G technology is a good example in that they have over-designed their 40G technology to work over the worst fiber when the vast majority of fiber is relatively good and simply does not need all the bells and whistles. This is basic business incompetence but what does one expect when R&D is running the business?

    Build it and they will come… the problem is they aren't anymore.

  • NortelEngineer

    No jobs will be transferred at this time. Nortel has GNOC building and infrastructure but no engineers.

    As recruitment is frozen they can not recruit also.

    Currently GNOC has around 30 engineers (lower knowledge group) and they are also leaving one by one

    Also Nortel is getting MS customers in India. Only lower knowledge group will be in India to handle these customers higher knowledge group would be in RTP.

    I can’t say about future when everything becomes stable at Nortel. They might transfer jobs at that time, for any new openings hiring would be done in India. I don’t think any body will be loosing jobs due to GNOC.

  • hamiltok

    How do you think all of this will effect Nortel's stock? Currently its 23 cents a share? You think it will rebound a a little?

  • NTblinker

    Maybe these days they would allow recruitments because of completing their reorganisational issues. Just a guess!

  • NortelEngineer

    Do you think Nortel will be able to get right people joined at this time ? Even current employees are not ready to stay, all are searching opportunities. This announcement is just to attract Indian customers for Managed Services. I can say it will be beneficial for everybody in Nortel.

  • fieldrat

    Another news article on supposedly the new smaller Nortel.

    http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/reuters/090517/busin…

  • Norterrible

    What can be sold off will but for bargain basement prices. During the transfer of the sold business, most will be laid off without severance before the remaining Nortel employees join their acquirer. What is left will assume the remaining debt load and slide into chapter 7 and be let go without severance packages. This is so obvious and inevitable why is anyone even posting alternative fantasies?

    Instead of buying out legacy installed bases competitors should simply let Nortel slide into chapter 7 and then offer rip-out incentive plans. This is simpler and far cheaper than hiring existing Nortel dead wood and then have to firing them months/years later.

  • NTblinker

    “BANGALORE – Nortel* [TSX: NT | OTC: NRTLQ] has opened a new Global Network Operations Center (GNOC) in Bangalore, India to help remotely manage and support communications networks for enterprise and carrier customers across Asia, Europe and the Americas.”

    Not only to attract Indian customers but also the ones in Asia, Europe and the Americas. This sounds a melting of frozen recruitments as we come closer to mid-may

  • Norterrible

    Nobody is making money selling into India. Selling there is based on a positive future outlook although with existing financial losses.

    Who care about the Indian market?

  • rfc1149

    World class companies (e.g. Ericsson) are making money in India (and China and Africa). Not being competitive in over half the world (by population) is one of the damning comments on a large chunk of Nortel's businesses.

    Of course the 'GNOC' is in India not to address the Indian market but as a 'low cost' operating site.

  • NTblinker

    that's right! low Zost!

  • bharatrao2305

    Hello Everybody.:) I have been recruited by nortel during our campus placements last November. I am from Mysore, India. Will the opening of GNOC mean that we all will end up with jobs or still company is considering its decision

  • NTblinker

    dude, If you are an Indian guy, it is good for you. It is a new opportunity for you, indians.

  • bharatrao2305

    Hello, I have been recruited by nortel during our campus placements last November. I am from Mysore, India. Will the opening of GNOC mean that we all will end up with jobs or still company is considering its decision

  • NTblinker

    dude, If you are an Indian guy, it is good for you. It is a new opportunity for you, indians.

  • TwitterCounter for @markevans
  • Seeking Alpha Certified