Ciena Taking Home a MEN

That is totally unfair. Metro has huge money making potential and to call everyone who are still working there,friends, you are sounding like a guy who is bitter (Because he was let go?)

Nice article by Tom Mock.

“is set to roughly double in size – both in revenue and headcount”
but what about expense though…and why all this talk about sales/revenue only again and nothing mentioned about earnings/profit

“attributable to two things: the overall economy and their customers being a bit more cautious”
who says this is why 3rd quarter tanked, Nortel? Cautious is an understatement. They have been cautious and remain so until proven otherwise when it comes to Nortel, hence the contagious challenge resufaces in metamessage.

and yet again the word “focus” comes into play in the hype…hysterical…hype sounds like Nortel reincarnate, wait, it is!

“These assets fit well with our company, and we probably can get more leverage from them than pretty much anybody else could.”
refreshing to read something that makes sense here, ok, but Noika wanted them too and why are they of a lesser fit?

“There wasn’t as much overlap between our product lines and customer base”
“not much” doesn't mean none….a point better left mute…phhht

Honest of them to admit wanting their “customer base” (like everyone else who bought this garbage sale to expand but on what) and I have already reiterated where it is headed with differing opinions than those expressed by Nortell's here, oops I mean CIEN's PR =)

“accelerates our strategy by two to three years in terms of technology, customer base and coverage across a variety of different markets. In that regard, this is giving us a fair amount of additional fuel in the tank.”
again, bravo for a nice PR here again…ok…lotsa R&D and sales that CIEN can profit from by, you got it, cost cuts, the overlap remember… =) dejas vous

“On other bidders: The only one that we were bidding against in this process was Nokia Siemens.”
you mean those buggers cost them 40%! heh… free enterprise huh =) Does more harm than good sometimes, don't it? =)

good luck, Owens was right in that this was to become merging and merged sector but wrong about Nortel being the acquirer than acquiree let alone under these disgraced circumstances =)

yikes. customer commitments is bad. anyways look forward to watching muhammed ali (MEN) beat the living daylights out of little tweety (ciena). these guys are barracudas so a lot of the ciena VPs (ex nortel) are possibly out of a job.

But Metro doesn't turn a profit, no margins, so what if it brings in revenue it doesn't cover the costs.

Ciena shoud give packages to MEN's executives, upper and senior managment, keep the engineering staff and products – restructing will then be successful

This move will push ciena to the cliff in terms of assets. However, I think it will give Ciena access to customers they never had before. In terms of Channels, Nortel Sales outside NA was in bad shape anyway, so Ciena is gaining very little outside NA.

The big issue I see is how to combine the management team. Morin and his team know how to play the politics and they will eliminate Ciena management in no time. Morin already did it when he took over Metro and will do it again.

If the existing Nortel Management continue such as Morin, Scott, Shauna, Mike, and the tens of JCI6 and Directors who do nothing other than reporting fake numbers or useless projects, Ciena will be in trouble in very short period. These people proven themselves to be very poor business people. Period. Ciena will live without them.

If the integration period takes long, Huawei, ZTE, Cisco and ALU will gain new market share.

sorry, it doesn't. any clues?

He who pays the piper calls the tune… any battles will be very one sided. Ciena will listen, but they'll also be looking at the books and how the place was run.
e.g: Nortel MEN had massive problems with dreadful forecasting and product development methods, that constantly resulted in their having to “manage” tens of millions of $$ in dead inventory.
In comparison… whatever their faults, Ciena generally makes profits

Merging two entities on crutches won't make a sprinter out of the new outfit…

As for leaving the MEN exec team in place, agreed that there will be a power struggle but hopefully someone will realize that P. Morin's team systematically took the wrong decisions in the last 5 years (abandonning the metro space, betting the farm and loosing badly on a god-box for Vz, OM3500 and OM5000 underfunding, Metro-Next, etc) and that the only thing saving their behind is the skunk work done by R&D for 40G and 100G.

This doen't mean Ciena's management team is better… like I said CieNo is not out of the woods yet.

Okay, then. “I Believe Nortel will set Ciena straight” Much like “I Believe no Chapter 11 filing is imminent”

never heard of Shawna or Mike so cannot be that important. sounds like the Dark side taking over. men was 4th place and ciena was 10th so an ego clash will definitely happen. ciena management looks weak so there is no way they can prune the bad and groom the good.

Huawei is already no 1 in optical followed by Alcatel. Cisco is nowhere in optical except for some clunker they bought years ago. with 30 billion provided by the Chinese to Huawei they are geared for total annihlation.

more like two gays who want to be the man

yup agreed but then it is another 30 to 50 million in payouts. dont think they will as the realization will soon be to conserve cash. they could have chosen not to take them on board making them look foolish if they do let them go.

500 Mill plus some pieces of paper (paper will be worthless in a few years), stalking horse conditions were you must retain 85% of the MEN employees worldwide and 100% of the Ottawa base employees, keep Lab 10 & 2 for 10 years, the Montreal NPI team for 5 years, recognized years of service and pay, etc, Ciena didn't have a choice when bidding. Ciena is facing a more competitive market, lower cost competitor products, shrinking market share, etc they will have to be extremely cost effective and competitive they will have big challenge and battle trying to bring MEN inline.

Insiders are saying MEN management are informing them

- We selected Ciena, they were the best partner for us
- Nothing changes
- Business as usual
- All programs and plans continue unchanged as usual
- Continue working hard, focus on our customers

Sound like they expect nothing to change

Shoot, I cant cant remember the 2008 count — Richardsons Global Center Of Excellence must've numbered at least 800 Passports. Without em you could vacate another lab or two.

Finally! A Market focused guy! Thanks Teleguy for the reasonable analisys. Most of the guys here only see bad things about any buyer.
I'd like to add to your comment, something that made Ciena the winner. She needs and wants the technology, not only the footprint. Moreover, Ciena has recognized the talent of MEN R&D, and is taking most of them. No one else was iterested in taking the technology, only the footprint. It explains why just a few bidders showed up. The stalking horse conditions included people.
Only the people who have already stepped into Carling and Montreal facilities knows the valued people we have there. I'm not from any of these facilities, but I assure you they are the most talented people in optical R&D in world.

True, ONLY if Ciena is willing to remove 80% of senior level managers

True, ONLY if Ciena is willing to remove 80% of senior level managers