Nortel Didn’t Need More Protection from Foreigners

By Mark Evans | Published: September 21, 2009

It’s really interesting to see the growing amount of political huffing and puffing surrounding the demise of Nortel. The closer Nortel gets to extinction, the more enthusiastic that politicians get about proclaiming about how things could have been different if only better decisions had been made.

The latest example is federal Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff, who suggests he would change foreign investment rules to protect “flagship” Canadian companies such as Nortel, and how Prime Minister Stephen Harper “dropped the ball” when the government didn’t review Ericsson purchase of Nortel’s CDMA business and LTE R&D unit.

If Ignatieff wanted to rail against the Conversative government, he probably should have stayed away from using Nortel as an example.

First, Nortel didn’t need protection from foreign investors; it needed protection from the foreign executives who helped drive it into the ground over the past five years.

Second, the federal government made the right decision when it decided not to review the Ericsson’s deal. The CDMA business was not of “national interest” so it made little sense to review it.

Source: Bloomberg

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  • scalppeeler

    This iggy dude is whack.
    Completely out of his mind.
    Here is a direct quote from him and you can hear him say it on the telly.
    “Ignatieff said he won’t increase taxes, and would encourage economic growth by strengthening ties with emerging economies such as China and India”.
    Translation—->>>> More jobs leave Canada. More outsourcing and less employment for established Canadians who have worked and paid taxes for years. More pensioners left in the cold like the Nortel pensioners. Where will all the dollars go after that when the liberals run things. Multiculturalism, Pluralism, Bilingualism, Refugee payouts and welfare, settlements to Terrorists and Canadians of Convenience who sue. As bad as harper is doing iggy will do worse!!!
    Layton would be alright if he made welfare mandatory.
    I think we need to vote for Duceppes.

  • zeroman

    lets be clear. it is just politics and only politics. nobody has the heart or the balss to to do anything. all they can do is appear to be doing something and swing a few voters. thats all.

    nortel is dead. it was past hope a long time ago. it could have turned around. it could have been profitable. it could have become a smaller, stronger player.

    Only, IT TAKES SOME BUSINESS SENSE to have done it. Not process, stalling to keep getting paycheques, useless programs or trying to figure out a plan for years.

  • yes4aapl

    Let us be clear on some points
    1 Nortel killed Nortel
    2 Gov intervention was possible before BK on Jan 14 2009
    3 Any talk about gov review of any Nortel's BK asset sale is nonsense as the ICICA is clear about that, it does not apply to bankrupt companies.
    ICICA does not apply here
    read
    http://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/ica-lic.nsf/eng/lk…
    Defunct Business
    Receivership or Bankruptcy
    Nortel is in final stages of assets disposal.
    CDMA gone
    Enterprise gone
    What’s next?
    MEN_optical?

  • Nortel1220

    Mistake 1:
    The Demise of Nortel began when John Roth was promoted to CEO.
    David House who was leading Bay, would have been the right choice.
    House would have directed the company towards the Internet and changed the culture from Bell to Internet and today Nortel would be competitive with or ahead of Cisco. Roth did a great job promoting the company publicly to run up the stock, but was not the person for developing product strategy for the pending Internet transition coming.

    Mistake 2:
    Eliminating BNR. Nortel was always great because of the brillant people at BNR being given opportunity to be great engineers building great products. When the unique culture here was folded into NT, valuing brillance was lost to just putting together another business case.

    Mistake 3:
    The Demise was then guaranteed by the Nortel employee layoff selections. In general, Nortel seemed to want to keep the happy people and the followers and eliminate the boat rockers and rebels. As it is the boat rockers that challenge management to do the right things, and insist on proper strategies and directions , their exits left mostly “Yes People ” lemmings in the ranks. This assurred greatness would not return.

    Mistake 4:
    Hiring Mike Z. Though Mike Z had knowledge of the consumer hand sets business , he was not intimate with Nortel's primary businesses. Someone from Verizon, BellSouth, Bell Canada would have been a better choice. Though Mike may have successful had he surrounded himself with industry veterans. Instead he hired old friends that were also from other industries. While GE strategies were great for GE, Nortel is not GE. You have to make sure you are putting the right shoe on the right foot.

    In it's prime Nortel was a great company. However, it lost it's values which made it great and became just another business.

  • eluc

    Mr EVANS.
    You talk no more the people language, you talk more the consevative or american one. Since the pressure of liberals grow aginst conservative I fell like you changed your way, like something made a big influance in your positions, maybe for your future. I don't like liberals, I don't like conservatives but I saw very clare which are the right way. I don't like Zafirofsky or maybe I should like him, he said : I asked support from the Canadian gouvenment 1 billion , they gave me nothing. I asked 500 mil , result was nothing. Finaly he asked 250 mil but the answer was nothing. So you come now to say Nortel was killed by himself. It's true, very true but nobody try to help him and that's what all the people who has a relation whith Nortel reproach to y r “friends” from the gouv . All the country try to save their industry not case for Canadian gouvernment. We pay GM to keep him alive. We said “it has no book value” to block the sale but it's saled 10 times more. What means 1 bn for Nortel to save an industry near 34 bn 2009 defficit (or more). Canada start to have a stong dollar since the international primery materials has more value. We exit from reccession better than any industrialized state because of our natural resurce not because of our high technology and when the recession will be forgoten and the global economy will be in normal value, Canada will be the last one in the challenge whith the industrialized state because we'll be the worker and they will be the owner.
    That's the differance.
    THAT'S WHY WE SHOULD HELP NORTEL.
    WE SHOULD RE-CONVERT HIM.
    WE SHOULD PUT HIM IN THE CANADIAN HANDS.
    Tell that story to your gouvernment.

  • Moose_Chaser

    Michael Ignatieff is AN AMERICAN AND A TRAITOR !

    Nuff said.

    MC

  • exnt_x_2

    He's just doing his Bilderberg masters' bidding. Same thing's going on in all the G7, nothing new.

  • Moose_Chaser

    You know nothing.

    Go play “Cubicle FreakOut”.

    MC

  • 28yearnt

    To Avaya CEO

    If the current Nortel management structure will still be in place, not only this acquisition will fail at the end, but also Nortel will bring down Avaya in the future. You need special means in the special situation. Act swiftly and don't be sidetracked by all the political BS . Do what you suppose to do as a wise businessman.

    Get all these bastards out of the door no matter how they disguise themselves as team leaders, architectures.Then the rest of people will behave. So does the whole company.

    It is Nortel culture killed Nortel. See how many Nortel managers still hang around after so many rounds of laidoff . See my previous post on Nortel culture. These managers are the bearers of Nortel culture. They need to be gone first!!!

    Then close Belleville, Ottawa and Toronto site, move everything to Ottawa Avaya lab.

    If one thing the previous Nortel CEOs all did wrong is not to cut work force quick and deep enough.

    Long time Nortel employee.

  • CS1000

    hahaha!!!! Well done

  • GoProto

    “WE SHOULD RE-CONVERT HIM.
    WE SHOULD PUT HIM IN THE CANADIAN HANDS”
    ———————————
    Who, might I ask, is : HIM ??
    —————————————————————————————————
    ” I don't like Zafirofsky or maybe I should like him, he said : I asked support from the Canadian gouvenment 1 billion , they gave me nothing. I asked 500 mil , result was nothing. Finaly he asked 250 mil but the answer was nothing. So you come now to say Nortel was killed by himself”
    ——————————————-

    As most people know – Mike Z never had so much as a whisper of a chance to get any help from the Gov't. Know why ? Because neither he nor the BoD ever formulated or presented a PLAN when they went to ask for help At the very least, no Gov't is going to dole out money to a CEO/Company who can't even explain how he is going to get the company out of Bankruptcy. The Gov't may have just as well thrown money out of the window, or down the toilet. Understand? You have to be able to show how you are going to use the Gov't's money to save your company. No One Did, Not HIM, not anyone.

  • Musicvideos1

    As the The CDMA business was not of national interest its the right decision made by federal government not to review the Ericsson’s deal.

  • GoProto

    Sorry, but anyone who suddenly appears huffing and puffing now is no more than a scavenger, a bottom-feeder of the most egregious kind. Go crawl back under your opportunistic rock and feed on the amoebas floating by..

  • eluc

    (( I posted here because I am one of the people touch by Nortel banckrupcy so I can be subjective like almost all which post here … BUT I DON'T LIKE THE TRAITOR ))

    Did you saw the PLAN ? Do you believe M Z or Gov ?
    Me, I belive in no one. I don't think the PLAN was good but I don”t think that was not good. …And what I have to do me, as Gov ? Did you saw Gov to say “I proposed Nortel to follow our PLAN, the Gov PLAN” ? Did you saw Gov to talk too much, to show us they care about Nortel. You didn't saw and you know why? It's because THEY DIDN'T WANT.
    Harper send us a very short message from Panama that he will don't block the sale. Did you saw someone from Gov to sit at table, to debate with some analist or with any one about a problem that was in hundreds of reports in the newspapers or journals.

    They didn't do it because they never want to save Nortel.

  • GoProto

    “Did you saw the PLAN ?”
    ——————————–
    No one did…

    There was no Re-Structuring Plan Ever to see- they never came up with one, only Promises to.

  • yes4aapl

    I see you are the guard here.
    Good job.
    Did you saw the plan?
    hahaa
    Nobody did saw!
    haha
    to be honest..
    Nortel's assets dispositions is going well.
    Congrats to all involved.
    Mike Z is gone! good!
    BoD is gone!
    Good!

  • Pingback: Who owns Nortel ? I say the Canadian taxpayer. Why ? | TheTelecomBlog.com

  • GoProto

    I lost my saw last winter.. cutting down lumber before it fell on my home… ;>)

    Not really a guard, but honestly, it's Silly! I just had to say Something!! There must be an alternate Universe that i only come onto contact with once in awhile, and gratefully so…

    I agree, Z and BoD gone=only good can come out of this.

  • Pingback: Who owns Nortel ? A response from Mark Goldberg | TheTelecomBlog.com

  • Pingback: Who owns Nortel ? A response from Mark Goldberg « TheTelecomBlog.com

  • rlsmeridian

    Interesting that no one mentions that Nortel telephone sets are much better and user friendly than Avaya sets. It's a personal opinion, but compare a Nortel 1140E with an Avaya IP set, and while the Avaya telephone set looks modern and with its tone on tone grey, it lacks the color coded keys, the unique Nortel key click when dialing a number, changable ring tones that Nortel is known for, a call waiting Buzz, easy feature key programing, etc….I could go on and on. It's a sad day when these industry standard 1120/40E, M3900, T7316 sets, even older M2000 and M7000 are eliminated from the millions of desks around the world. Gone will be the RLS button, which was GREAT in retail store training manuals in regards to making paging annoucements. Here at Walgreens, our training manual trains everyone how to press the RLS key after making an annoucement so the hang up sound is not heard over the store speakers. It's not just Walgreens, all TJX stores, Borders Books, HBC in Canada, Safeways stores, Supervalu Jewel Osco stores, and many, many other retailers and other organizations that have used Nortel as industry standard telephones, will now be disrupted by Avaya, who intends to phase out all Nortel telephones for their own telephones.

    It's a sad, sad day in the telecom world! Luckily I bought a Nortel BCM 50 in February for my loft in Chicago, yeah I am a telephone geek, I collect old Western Electric and Northern Electric telephones from the past….including a very interesting red rotary WE set from 1962. I actually live in a building that was the first Western Electric plant in Chicago in the early 1900's. Kind of ironic that Western Electric's future company AT&T technologies, which then became Lucent, and now Avaya, is now taking over the one company in the world that produced some of the most beautiful, well designed telephones in the world, and will replace them with their own equipment….. I am sure Avaya will come knocking soon and try to get me to switch over to their IP system, no way in HELL, will I be switching to their equipment!

  • rlsmeridian

    Interesting that no one mentions that Nortel telephone sets are much better and user friendly than Avaya sets. It's a personal opinion, but compare a Nortel 1140E with an Avaya IP set, and while the Avaya telephone set looks modern and with its tone on tone grey, it lacks the color coded keys, the unique Nortel key click when dialing a number, changable ring tones that Nortel is known for, a call waiting Buzz, easy feature key programing, etc….I could go on and on. It's a sad day when these industry standard 1120/40E, M3900, T7316 sets, even older M2000 and M7000 are eliminated from the millions of desks around the world. Gone will be the RLS button, which was GREAT in retail store training manuals in regards to making paging annoucements. Here at Walgreens, our training manual trains everyone how to press the RLS key after making an annoucement so the hang up sound is not heard over the store speakers. It's not just Walgreens, all TJX stores, Borders Books, HBC in Canada, Safeways stores, Supervalu Jewel Osco stores, and many, many other retailers and other organizations that have used Nortel as industry standard telephones, will now be disrupted by Avaya, who intends to phase out all Nortel telephones for their own telephones.

    It's a sad, sad day in the telecom world! Luckily I bought a Nortel BCM 50 in February for my loft in Chicago, yeah I am a telephone geek, I collect old Western Electric and Northern Electric telephones from the past….including a very interesting red rotary WE set from 1962. I actually live in a building that was the first Western Electric plant in Chicago in the early 1900's. Kind of ironic that Western Electric's future company AT&T technologies, which then became Lucent, and now Avaya, is now taking over the one company in the world that produced some of the most beautiful, well designed telephones in the world, and will replace them with their own equipment….. I am sure Avaya will come knocking soon and try to get me to switch over to their IP system, no way in HELL, will I be switching to their equipment!

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