Amid Mike Z.’s decision to abandon ship, the sale of the CDMA business to Ericsson, and calls for the federal government to block the Ericsson deal, it’s been interesting to see how little attention has been paid to Nortel’s Metro Ethernet Networking business.
This is, after all, a business that was seen as Nortel’s crown jewel (before the LTE patents were thrust into the spotlight), and it attracted several bidders when Nortel put MEN on the block last year.
These days, however, MEN has been thrust out of the spotlight while most of the attention about the Nortel Garage Sale is focused on the sale of the Nortel’s enterprise business.
That said, LightReading has a story suggesting that Ericsson could emerge as a potential buyer for MEN.
“Ericsson still seems to be the best fit for MEN, based on Nortel’s North American presence in optical and Ericsson’s lack of optical networking market share,” Heavy Reading analyst Sterling Perrin told LightReading. “Most other potential suitors have a fair amount of overlap and so would really only buy or need bits and pieces of MEN.”
In the second-quarter, MEN sales dropped 27% to $330-million as “revenues from certain customers in the second quarter of 2008 that did not repeat to the same extent in the second quarter of 2009″.
Still, MEN is a solid asset that will eventually find a new home when all is said and done. Of course, Nortel will get nowhere near the $1-billion to $2-billion that it hoped to attract last Fall.
Ottawa is a place for the bilingual gov't worker who lives in quebec but works in ontario. Gov't and social housing occupations are where you want to be. And by that I mean a recipient of social housing or les habitat de humanity. These are the two fields you want to be in if you live in ottawa. Mister Jim Watson is so proud of all the tax dollars being sent into the social housing, welfare dishing, refugee handout bonanza, that I think he is going to cry at his next interview.
Teleguy
You're even better than the French posters who were rallying the forum to unite for the Nortel cause and then fucked off when they got their pound of flesh. Vive le me libre!
I don't write code and I do understand the business-side of the optical business. MEN certainly can improve, but it will survive.
RIM and Apple have no optical business that I know of.
Norterrible
There are still many excellent designers, business people, and a wealth of optical patents still of value to anyone acquiring MEN. However, the cancerous lump of people that continually make commitments to the business and customers and then summarily do not meet their commitments with no accountability (fired) must be cut off immediately and before the transfer takes place. Incompetent people put into key positions based on who they know rather than what they know, what experience they possess, and what successful track records they have should be removed for more competent people. There are too many of these lumps in the product management teams but more so in R&D that no acquiring wallet should retain these lumps unless they want it to spread to their own organization.
Norterrible
There are still many excellent designers, business people, and a wealth of optical patents still of value to anyone acquiring MEN. However, the cancerous lump of people that continually make commitments to the business and customers and then summarily do not meet their commitments with no accountability (fired) must be cut off immediately and before the transfer takes place. Incompetent people put into key positions based on who they know rather than what they know, what experience they possess, and what successful track records they have should be removed for more competent people. There are too many of these lumps in the product management teams but more so in R&D that no acquiring wallet should retain these lumps unless they want it to spread to their own organization.
Who’s Looking for a Good MEN?
Amid Mike Z.’s decision to abandon ship, the sale of the CDMA business to Ericsson, and calls for the federal government to block the Ericsson deal, it’s been interesting to see how little attention has been paid to Nortel’s Metro Ethernet Networking business.
This is, after all, a business that was seen as Nortel’s crown jewel (before the LTE patents were thrust into the spotlight), and it attracted several bidders when Nortel put MEN on the block last year.
These days, however, MEN has been thrust out of the spotlight while most of the attention about the Nortel Garage Sale is focused on the sale of the Nortel’s enterprise business.
That said, LightReading has a story suggesting that Ericsson could emerge as a potential buyer for MEN.
“Ericsson still seems to be the best fit for MEN, based on Nortel’s North American presence in optical and Ericsson’s lack of optical networking market share,” Heavy Reading analyst Sterling Perrin told LightReading. “Most other potential suitors have a fair amount of overlap and so would really only buy or need bits and pieces of MEN.”
In the second-quarter, MEN sales dropped 27% to $330-million as “revenues from certain customers in the second quarter of 2008 that did not repeat to the same extent in the second quarter of 2009″.
Still, MEN is a solid asset that will eventually find a new home when all is said and done. Of course, Nortel will get nowhere near the $1-billion to $2-billion that it hoped to attract last Fall.