Mike Z.’s Nortel Legacy: Fail

What am I bid for Enterprise? Do I hear an opening bid?

Milan

Nortel Networks will soon announce the sale of its big enterprise division as it moves closer to a decision to break itself apart completely.

Nortel said it would sell its CDMA and LTE wireless businesses to Nokia Siemens Networks for $650 million. The enterprise unit, which makes networks and gear for large corporate clients, is seen as a next logical candidate,.

After the wireless division, it is Nortel's biggest business unit. It had first-quarter revenue of $395 million, down 41 percent from a year earlier, Nortel reported last month.

Nortel said on Friday it is making progress in selling its other businesses, but added it will "assess other restructuring alternatives" if sales don't materialize.

>>At least 2,500 employees would have the opportunity to continue with Nokia Siemens Networks.

So - what is hapenning to the remaining 20,000 Nortel employes? There is probably not that many employess in the remaining business units - Enterprise, Optical, and Wireline

On a side note, it is interesting how all media reports referring to 30,000 employees. I left in early June as of last count, there were just around 23,500 employes in their HR system

Would it be possible for Nortel to transfer all their people with the sale of Nortel businesses? It would certainly prevent a lot of misery wouldn't it?

Re-posted:

A short summary of what happened to Nortel:

Great and dedicated employees, plus
No vision, plus
No strategy, plus
Extreme executive arrogance, plus
Money-grabbing management, plus
80’s style superficial lingo and PR, plus
ZZZZero Leadership, equals:
Disaster!!!!!
Nortel will be a business schools’ case study of what not to do.

With deep sadness…--bb

I don't agree for such accusations.

sorry
BB you crossed the line in that.
I love u anyway!

No accusations, just historical facts - period! Love u2..--bb

Hello: Is it possible for Nortel to transfer all their people to the other businesses that may buy Nortel? Would that be a condition of purchase of Nortel businesses? It would save a lot of misery wouldn't It?

No, because if that were the case than there would be no buyers. No one will buy an 'overloaded' biz unit; no one is that dumb..--bb

In all seriousness, I agree.

I have a question, CDMA is a dying business with Nortel. How would Nokia make it growing/profitable again? Would the big customers start buying more because it's Nokia now?

I am not trying to be an ass, just want to hear opinions.

A few comments:
1) CDMA is on the decline, but it is not dead. It still has a number of years left in it as CDMA is defined as IS-95, 1xRTT, EV-DO, etc.... it is a cacth all phrase for the evolution of the technology right up to 4G. Vz and others will be adding capacity and some footprint over the next few years, so this along with fsoftware upgrades and maintenance plans should ensure decent revenue, at good margin, for a few years to come

2) NSN does not sell anything of note to VzW, Sprint, US Cellular, Leap, etc... today. With the acquisition, they will now be a major supplier to the companies I just listed. In addition to going from number 6 to number 2 in NA market share, they now have the opportunity to sell other pieces of their portfolio to these carriers.

3) In terms of $$$, I would expect that they would b/e on the investment in pure $$$ in 2-3 years based n the margins alone. That fact, plus the startegic footprint that they will acquire will more than cover the very small purchase price of $650M.

This Monday morning, I'm sure ZMans recieved congratualation calls from companies :

Alcatel-Luncent
Ericsson
Huawei
NSN
ZTE

Anyone know about NSN's benefit package (number of vacation days, 401(k) matching, holidays, etc.)?

If I was in a position in which a white knight company was going to save my livelihood, my first questions to it would not be about vacations and statutory holidays.

ask Kevin Marcellus and/or quit worrying about these details. You can maybe ask if they provide free coffee in the morning and have showers int he office.

What will be teh title of the last post on this blog.

My suggestion would be:

This is the end
Beautiful friend
This is the end
My only friend, the end

Of our elaborate plans, the end
Of everything that stands, the end
No safety or surprise, the end
I'll never look into your eyes...again

From tehe Doors and Appocalypse Now

About After Nortel...--bb

wasn't it the prime minister who told the whole country it's a good time to invest in the market and so I did in Nortel .Common shares in any company are ways for the insiders to make free money from ordinary people.Scam and nothing but a scam. The stock market has made millionairs who never invented anything or established a business from scratch.

Why would anybody buy shares in a company that has been dying for such a long time. Even BCE hedged their Nortel shares. My opinion is that business historians will find that the rot set in in th early 80s after the initial success of DMS. It has been all downhill since then

Another possibility, but really just one more cycle in the death spiral, was the death of BNR.

you'r right!! why would anybody buy shares in a company that looks to be dying."Never say Never "a good example would be Apple... near death and out of the picture for years come out with new innovated tech such as the ipod and their back in favor with wall st.Technology can change life as we know it overnight and that is why you never give up on tech companies as huge as Nortel . What could have BEEN.!!!!Just like the AVRO ARROW.

I was on the GIS with R. Lowe today. Some points I took away may be useful to the readers:

- The 2,500 or so number of CDMA/LTE employees moving to NSN (if they win the stalking horse) represents about 80% of the current CDMA/LTE access employee base today. (this means there is around 3,100 today).

- The stalking horse runs until July 24th, and the winner is announced about a week later.

- if NSN wins the auction, the 2,500 could be an NSN employee by August 1st.

- NSN cannot absorb all 2,500 into payroll at once, so it is likely Nortel will continue to pay salaries (with NSN monies I assume).

- don't know where the 2,500 will be initially based (real estate likely to drag on, so Nortel real estate would likely rent out space to NSN until that gets sorted out.)

- Years of service will be bridged. ex, if you have 20 years @ Nortel, you start day 1 @ NSN with 20 years of NSN service.

- salaries will be about the same ("won't get screwed" according to Bruce Gustavson) as well as benefits; essentially going to be on par with current NSN employees.

- US Nortel employees who have accrued vacation will get cashed out whatever is "in the bank" when moved to NSN.

So what about the delta between 3,100 and 2,500? Most of North America CDMA/LTE access employees are covered, but account/operations outside of NA are not of primary interest to NSN. There are still reductions going on this month and into July. R.Lowe was vague about who would move, and who was not covered but IMO if you are not directly involved with CDMA North America, you'll be up the creek without a paddle/package.

Worth noting that NSN will apparently be making offers to the 2,500, of course that means it could be turned down, but I don't think anyone will turn down offer of employment with a complany with stronger base.

My 0.02 - which is worth more than NT stock price!

====================================
- The stalking horse runs until July 24th, and the winner is announced about a week later.
====================================

Are you sure this is correct? It seems the horse won't be stopped untill Sep. 7th.

Thats good news. Sound like all the CDMA people in NA are safe then....good for them.

That was meant for Milan - god's gift to telecom.

I did buy a life, with the easy money I made on the NT gravy train.

Selling NT in the 90's was easier that selling ROLM in the 80's. No competition, 150% financing and the bean counters were on the take so zero debookings.

Is Canada a great country or what ?

Milan

Better than Serbia?--bb

You sound exactly like the kind of f***ing a**hole that I will be so glad to be rid of when this whole thing is over. Go buy a life, goof.

Frank Roth? I think this blog is as tired as Nortel is. You have my sympathy, trying to keep up with all the twists and turns in the Nortel nightmare is a full-time job. But, maybe, it's time to close it down, now that Nortel is no more?

yes unfortunately the end of Nortel hurt many including employees and their families,customers,shareholders,creditors and even Canadian heritage.

To add to this Mike Zafirovski's last memories with Nortel will be that he was "The CEO" associated with guiding the company into liquidation and last but defintely not least was that his last public words describing why bonuses were awarded while severance was denied was only because he was forced to do so by way of being summoned by the Canadian Government after initially refusing to do so.

The psychiatrist
come to the workshop, the old mess board..
here at AAN it's more official and less of discussing things
Start your new life there
http://messages.yahoo.com/Recreation_%26_Sports...
There is life after NT! my opinion y4

or this
http://tinyurl.com/nxzymq

Once the shares are delisted from the TSE, I wonder how long before www.nortel.com gets taken down..one more sad day for all of us..perhaps the saddest

There are 101 reasons why Nortel failed. Many of them pre-date Z, but not all of them.

Thus, someone can say this "it was this" or "it was that" and be correct; so can the next person who points out a different mistake. None of those mistakes individually were a killer, but collectively they were fatal.

It's just like many airplane accidents; it often takes a series of things going wrong in exactly a certain way to produce the accident.

Z professed turning out the lights so much he’ll get to do it himself. Not just sad but pathetic as well…--bb

grimm_reepr

I remember you ! I beat you like a drum when we competed against each other in the optical space.

You're right I was compensated richly. Commissions, bonuses, options, Masters awards 5 years running. Luckily I made so much money I couldn't spend it all. I got iced in 2002, took a package and retirement lump sum.

BTW: Cashed out all my options in 2000 in the pre-split 60's.

Thanks for reminding me of the good times.

Milan

Nortel employees have been overpaid for years.....now they are whining about reality setting in??!!! No - it's NOT all senior managements fault - it's the pervasive sense of entitlement that permeated Nortel since the late 90's when Nortel oversold optical products into the carrier space (and financed the bulk of these purchases to boot).

I am entitled to fair market wage for my work. My NT salary is on par with every other software engineer with similar experience in Canada. I have checked more than once over the years.

If you are suggesting that NT employees have a sense of being entitled to the same wage as others doing equivalent jobs for other companies, then you are correct. Do you feel you deserve less than your peers?

grimm_reepr

I remember you ! I beat you like a drum when we competed against each other in the optical space.

You're right I was compensated richly. Commissions, bonuses, options, Masters awards 5 years running. Luckily I made so much money I couldn't spend it all. I got iced in 2002, took a package and retirement lump sum.

BTW: Cashed out all my options in 2000 in the pre-split 60's.

Thanks for reminding me of the good times.

Milan

Um...what? I've worked SP customers who were pitched No-Tel's bullshit about "unending exponential bandwith demand".

Nortel sales and engineering were basically one of the main architects and enablers of the telecom boom/bust.....the biggest collapse next to the US real-estate collapse.

Nortel Nitwits need to stop whining....your got way more than you were ever entitled too - now go away.

...yeah, go compete for reepr's job.

grimm_reepr

I remember one time I was walking out of an SP customer's office with a US$14 million order and saw you on the loading dock waiting to see the geek squad that was maintaining the gear I replaced. . What a hoot!

BTW: The 2001 stock market sell off was due to the dot-com collapse, Telecom was a bit player in that fiasco. But then you always took yourself way too seriously.

You still carrying a tool kit these days?

Milan

I think you must have me confused with some other telecom shill. I was never a scummy sales-person, thank god....

It was sales scum like you and your ilk that enabled the telecom bubble/collapse which destroyed JDS, Nortel, Entrust, etc. etc.....sure, crooks like you, John Roth and many others snuck out before the sh1t hit the fan. You must be proud!

ROFLMAO!!!!

Poor, poor (and I mean literally do mean poor) reepr.

Watched me and all the other peddlers make literally millions while he did all the heavy lifting. We made the outlandish promises and left nerds like reepr behind to clean up the mess.

Life was good, life still is good. I'm living life large reepr, so how are you doing bit twiddler ?

BTW: Of course I'm proud I made a pile and got out early. I got a wad and all you got is a bad attitude.

Milan

You manifest the typical NoTell arrogance, ego and foolish pride, back-stabbing, disrespectful, wake up, dude! your dream is over

Dude!

I am living the dream! I collected commissions on gear that is still sitting unused in warehouses. Teligent was my account. NT financing at 150%. The more they bought the more money they got.

Thank you Wayne Fathergill !

Milan

Pls tell us you were also an ex-pat a portion of your Nortel yrs getting a nifty housing allowance, car, etc. + $200K in annual comp...if you didn't, then look at what you missed out on...

I did do a year in Sydney in 1999. No sales but lots of easy women and great beaches.

Sun tanned Milan

I did do a year in Sydney in 1999. No sales but lots of easy women and great beaches.

Sun tanned Milan
---
re

I concur
easy women and great bitches
Sydney! kangaroo!

My man! Shrimps on the barbie!

Bimbos on the beach !

Milan

express yourself man
Did you like kangaroos?

Milan- From what i recall- YOU were the "Shrimp" on the Beach, umm i mean Barbie.. Catch my drift? Yeah, Milan..my ass..never saw you from the runway.. Yours Truly, one extra-ordinary Blond .

"one extra-ordinary Blond "
...courtesy of bleach, botox and silicone.

MB

Nope,
so sorry-
not a single dram of any of the above.

Thought you were banned from this blog.

Mike Z was/is clueless; a complete and utter failure as a manager, leader and as a person. He did not even understand what the game was. The game was chess while he played dominos (eventually knocking them all down). Three days on the job and the first thing he wanted to do is to buy Avaya!?! I knew then that it was his huge ego talking instead of sound reason and judgment ruling; an early warning sign of things to come.

Btw, Tasman happened prior to Riedel’s arrival however, Riedel also needs to stand up and take responsibility. As the old Macedonian saying goes: “If your boss doesn’t listen to your advice, find one that will!”…--bb

I don't know what amazes me more:

1. Mike Z's complete and total incomprehension of Nortel's businesses.

2. Mike Z's disastrous hiring choices and organizational dysfunction.

3. Mike Z's stubborn unwillingness to recognize points (1) and (2) and to do something about it.

4. The Board's refusal to take any action to protect the shareholder's interest over a three-year period of decline.


You can't make this stuff up - nobody would believe it.

Amen. Mike never wanted to deal with reality, he only wanted to hear what he liked from people that liked him. He also never wanted to try anything not in the GE cookbook of Management. Only now, when he cannot ignore reality in bankruptcy, does he take any rational action ie selling the businesses. And he complains that this is forced on him to boot!

Does anyone have a statement from the EDC? I would like to see their math on the $300M loan. How many jobs did Nokia have to guarantee in Canada, and for how long?

looks like 830 Canadian jobs will be saved. I wonder how many Canadian Nortel employees are in CMDA/LTE?

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/n...

That's only until the next leg of the economic downturn which will begin later this summer. Then it will be chop chop chop.

Ah ,that good old secular global bear. Named Mikey.

Tell me, if non-stop doomsday crticism at AAN helped speed and intesnify Norrtel's demise, does the same not apply for this gloomy secular global bear thingy?

HA ! This blog did not affect Nortel one iota. Its tough for an economy to function once global debt to GDP of the country that is responsible for 25% of global consumption is close to 100%. As I said in my post above, Nortel was doomed long before Mike Z came on board. The company could have been broken up sooner for better value but Mike Z decided to give shareholders the worst possible value because of his lack of understanding of market dynamics, economics and math (what he majored in). The global economy is still in a long process of deleveraging from all kinds of shenanigans the last 15 years that were primarily based on debt (via central bank leverage) and not savings. Instead of reading AAN now that Nortel is really done, perhaps folks can focus on macroeconomic issues of real impact. Nortel has been yesterday's news for over 8 years. That should give you a hint as to how much longer things can go on before their demise.

I suspect EDC is profitable by making applicants pay for thousands of dollars worth of their courses in able to to get the government money they give, not lend when things go sour.

here is an idea. we should vote Z to be on Trump's Celebrity Apprentice and watch this weasel squirm in board meetings.

this is what happens when you put a mule into a racehorse for thoroughbreds. simple as that.

nice resume update for Z but am sure he wont mention how he ran 10 billion compan into the ground. 10 billion and he could not restructure in 3 years. maybe he should go back to school with his sons.

he made a huge mark alright.

Time to update his wiki page accordingly. Nortel's was - this morning.

Hard to say, as it is really easy to point fingers with a should've-could've-would've position.

Hm. It obviously takes one to know one, because, namely:

AAN is how old? How many posters here have over entire years offered countless free tips, in realtime, on what "Nortel should, could, would" do?

Far less than 12-18 months ago they were poo-poo'd for not just letting the Experts do what they got paid so well to do.

Them z-mails say as much: "We know what we're doing. Shut up and trust us."

Some people even complained it was AAN hurting Nortel's business. Do I need to finally understand that the entire Canadian govt slipped into AAN's pocket? Hm?

Who is Frank Roth ?

Its George Riedel.

Nortel was done and cooked long before Mike Z took over. The last few years were just the economic unwinding needed to finish Nortel, otherwise it might have gone on for longer than anyone expected. Trying to transform a company during a coming economic crisis/slowdown that most smart people could see was a big mistake. Mike Z would have been better off selling assets in 2007 and doing a faster restructuring rather than a 3-5 year plan. That was his biggest mistake.

The funny part is that the head of operations at Nokia Siemens is none other than Sue Spradley. The folks that get sold to NSN will now re-experience Nortel's slow long decline thru a European joint venture that is still victim to the same market forces that undid Nortel. There is so much more bad news to come to companies like Siemens and Alcatel-Lucent. I feel bad for anyone that ends up at those places. Europe is in much more horrible economic shape than Canada or the United States. Expect heads to be chopped by those companies here in North America in order to preserve their own hide. Welcome to your new boss. Essentially the same as your old boss.

Lack of strategy (Riedel) and vision (Mike Z) are root causes of Nortel failure. Riedel is incapable of providing strategic directions on M&As, partnership (e.g., with Huawei), etc. Why did NT give him a retention bonus?

Sorry but you are wrong! It was Z that initiated the partnership w/Huawei (cause he's clueless) and Riedel nixed it when he came on board, Riedel talented M&A guy but lacks a strong will (see my post above)...--bb

Hindsight is 20:20 but it is clear that a fundamental strategic mistake was made when Nortel thought they could run with the big boys (Cisco, Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, Huawei) rather than being a focused segment player such as Juniper. Their Balance Sheet wasn't strong enough to be a "consolidator" in this business and the global economic crisis didn't help either.

Nortel's heritage has been a Carrier player. Perhaps a clear focus on that segment, with a sale of Enterprise a couple of years back would have been the right choice. Hard to say, as it is really easy to point fingers with a should've-could've-would've position.

Also, an interesting interview with Richard Lowe on lightreading.com A very interesting part is that the LTE Core business is not being sold to NSN. LTE Core is part of the deal with KDDI in partnership with Hitachi. Hard to say what happens now with the LTE Core business but perhaps that will be something Hitachi expresses an interest in.

Why do you reiterate hard to say, hard to say... no more speculating when not if they restructure?

http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id...
Lowe: we got caught up in what I would call a "perfect storm."

A lot of people talk about $650 million [for the wireless business] not being a lot of money, but everything is relative. It's a fair value for a business that's profitable but is in decline


http://www.unstrung.com/document.asp?doc_id=178...
many of Nortel's LTE specialists jumped ship earlier this year to find jobs elsewhere after the company went into Chapter 11

bankruptcy protection was a fatal blow to Nortel's bid to become one of the suppliers in Verizon

there has been attrition across the company since bankruptcy protection was announced, but the company would not disclose numbers of employees who have left nor which departments have been hit.

It's over for shareholders:
The Canadian Press, Monday, Jun. 22, 2009 10:22AM EDT
Nortel Networks shares are no longer publicly traded.

"...shares suspended by Canada's main stock market."

Nortel chief executive Mike Zafirovski also said Nortel is in advanced talks to sell other parts of the business within a matter of weeks or months and that it would ask to have its shares delisted from public stock markets.
__________________________________

From $124.50 to under 2 cents presplit before delisted

Ultimatum settlement shares (deal with the devil) settled at $30, tanked by revisions they downplayed, then finally distributed at around $9 Cdn last year... now worthless...

please you help to understand !!!!

i see that ntrlq is still trading in nasdaq ? can it be
can nortel delisted them in nasdaq without pay to shareholders ?

A: Yeah it is weird.. NT appears to still be trading. The email from Z. didn't give a time it would hault trading.

B: Yes they can and will delist with out giving you any money.

Speaking of horses... guess this one was ridden into the ground...

Being in that company for more than 30 years before they let me go last March. I do believe that the downfall started when John Roth bought the famous Bay Network at an astronomic price. Afterward, I cannot recall all those acquisitions that were done that we never used these tehcnologies. Total waste of money. This is where all began from my view...Maybe I'm wrong but maybe not...

Secondly, the Frank Dunn story didn't help us and we continue to see the side effect of it.

Finally, Mike Z was the worst decision that the BoD took putting this guy as CEO. Perhaps, there was not much candidate in line to get this position after Dunn's crisis. I would call it the "domino's effect".

Anyhow, the sad thing is the remaining employed people. What will happen to them? I wish them all the best. I don't know how they gonna treat them. But recent news is not favorable to anybody...

Being in that company for more than 30 years before they let me go last March. I do believe that the downfall started when John Roth bought the famous Bay Network
-----
re
I have no rational arguments to defend John Roth..
It's my opinion
He was a good guy! my opinion
but hey
what about crooks like Jean Monty?
Ex Nortel CEo who stabbed Nortel in the back!?

Well, you're probably right. I remembered Jean when he was BCE CEO and when he took the decision to beak Northern Telecom from BCE. This was really bad...Anyhow, from my view, John Roth was worst with all those acquisitions he made with astronomic numbers. At that time, John was convinced this was the best things to do preventing other competitor to take it. As far as I know, none of the competitors have taken that route...During that period we burned a lot of cash and consequently we are now to the dead end....I'm not surprised...

"Frank Dunn story didn't help us and we continue to see the side effect of it."

John Manley (ex-finance minister during ad-scandal), his law firm is defending Dunn. He also traded options for cash a stunt not seen since Dunn days. Note also more recently increased lawsuit insurance to an amount equal to what they sold UMTS for ($300M) and that the premiums on this insurance gets paid before creditors like their new legal fees.

Fraud trials loom on both sides of the border (excluding those not at the crime scene /protected under safe harbor before they were protected under bankruptcy).

Amazing and endless side effects indeed.

You know what!?!?!? I think you may be right....I think that's what he's trying to do. Interesting.....

Funny how Zedman states that individual businesses will be sold-off... but there will still remain a Nortel holding company for IP... This will likely exist primarily to ensure Zed gets his 5yrs in to get his guaranteed pension.

What a waste of flesh.

Could they have really corrected their slide before they wiped out to crash and burn?

They already neared bankruptcy at 45 cents that was followed by the largest fraud in Canada (for bonuses they maintained to their dying day).

After their fraud ultimatum settlement where they refused to negotiate pay exorbitant practices. Allowed to print a whopping $4B in Nortel paper neglecting their largest pension deficit and while listing their largest asset as a tax credit just to love another day after selling manufacturing. This was not enough, they sold Headquarters, sold UMTS, the white elephant sold anything not nailed down while paying themselves exorbitantly throughout, futile banking on shear scale, maintaining expensive revenues neglecting earnings while reiterating cutting costs.

Aside from paying over 10 times premium for Tasman, they spent $448M US to acquire losing earnings PEC. This was deemed worth less than half so shortly thereafter ($200M) let alone today.

They spent around $400M for their top executives compensation, a lot of money was wasted internally and externally. Today, party time is over with a deadly hangover.One might think their bonuses alone might be incentive enough to keep the company going, if only the inexperienced team missing in action during the telecom wars only could perhaps.

Now selling aging CDMA and new LTE for $650M is not much relative to these $550M post bubble acquisitions let alone following the whopping $20B worth of acquisitions wasted earlier.

Nortel burned many billions and many lives in their follies and their transparency inhibits discovering exactly why. Their endless stories to contradiction only added insult to injury with their credibility...right into their final hours still looting the corpse.

It was Murphy's Law in full bloom with this "mission impossible" "tall mountains to climb" and "tall roads to cross" "ambitious plan". Mike at least warned it would "extinguish like a plant" if Nortel did not grow as it is destined to thankfully disappear today with a fraction of the stunts they have pulled. Balanced by 3 to 5 year plans, being a great company again, $20 buying opportunities, and endless hype and contradictions where I disagree they had much of a chance earlier.

Perhaps the astounding leniency they were ill afforded earlier on should share the blame risking so many lives being impacted by inexperienced people in what they termed "hard to fill roles" and insiders only who couldn't get it right the first time. Nortel was jinxed early only to be complimented by the perfect storm, with a grave misfortune we all share and can attest to in retrospect.

This weekend's conference call announcing the dissolution of NT included 2500 "managers".

Given the current size of NT, the organization is as top heavy with officers as the Russian military and equally efficient.

Oh Canada...

Edited with spelling mistakes cleaned up! - sorry...

The annoncement mentions that NSN would take at least 2,500 people. Does anyone know who many CDMA employees there are currently in Nortel? Be interesting to see the ratio of people in CDMA that won't get taken.

According to the Zed-Mail, 2500 accounts for the majority of CDMA/LTE employees. I doubt NSN would want the upper-crust overpaid managers. They'd be looking more for the grunts that do the actual work to pick up. Chances are there will be interviews to ensure the right people are brought into NSN.

The annoncement mentions that NSN would take at least 2,500 people. Does anyone know who many CDMA employees there are currently in Nortel? Be interesting to see the ratio of people in CDMA that won't get taken.

approx 5000 I was told.

does this number include the India, China, Turkey, Mexico or other offshored places?

This article from Bagnall is good except for this part:

He would hire lots of bright people and together they would figure out what business Nortel should be in.

In my opinion this was the biggest downfall of zafirovski...... he did NOT hire "bright people." He surrounded himself with incompetent people who were extremely ill suited for the positions that he gave them.

I cannot believe that Bagnall did not mention what a bad mistake it was for Mike Z to hire people like Joel "choker" Hackney, Clifford Holtz, John Roese, etc.

Bagnall = revisionist history

Its not over yet. Mike Z has destroyed Nortel, but he can stuff up even further

At stake is over 20,000 jobs world wide. There are people in NA, Europe, Australia & Asia whos hopes and dreams are hanging by a thread.

What Mike Z does now will determine the future of all these people. If he gets the sell off wrong the majority of these people will end up unemployed and Mike Z will have delivered the last and final blow to employees.


Lets see if he can at leats get this right

In R&D, it is rediculus that too many managers don't really understand the basic things about S/W development. They can't provide the real value to the comany. All they can do is following Zero Man's useless processes. Because these are what they can only do. No innovation is needed or even permitted, just because they are out of date, and don't know what has happened outside the company. The situation is much worse in MTX and GU voice core development. The culture of this company is sick.

"In R&D, it is rediculus [sic] that too many managers don't really understand the basic things about S/W development."

Are you being ironic? I've experience in industry both before and after Nortel, and one of it's main failing was to confuse writing software with research and development. You had a lot of programmers with engineering degrees who thought they were still engineers.

"The culture of this company is sick."
You did get that right.

Suggestion for the final ad campaign:

"This is the Waste. This is Nortel."

"This is the Way. This is Nortel."

http://www.nortel.com/corporate/news/newsreleas...

The truly, truly sad thing is after reading through the article, there were lifeboats and lifelines all the way along. This could have been prevented. WE (all of us) in Nortel can be relatively proud that ARROGANCE is alive and thriving throughout this corporation; From Board of Directors to CEO to VP's to Directors and so on and so on.

We thought we were too great to fall (or fail). Not to get religious, but there is a bible verse that fits Nortel and their culture. It goes, "When you think you are standing on solid ground, be careful.....YOU WILL FALL!"

I believe you mean "The hiring Frank Dunn" rather than "Frank Roth" as you have indicated.

I wonder where the "I Believers" are now? I think they should have to stay behind with trusted leader, Mike Z.