This post originally appeared on Jeff Wiener’s The Telecom Blog. Thanks to Jeff, who heads up Digitcom, for his permission to re-pint it on AAN.
Over my 19 years in the Telecom business almost everything has changed, as telecom technology continues to advance at a rapid rate. One of the things that had never changed, however, was the presence of the Norstar phone system. The once innovative product was introduced sometime in the late 1980’s, and its fantastic twenty year run has always demonstrated to me its overall superior quality.
In fact, I would classify the Norstar as, by far, the best phone system of its time, as it single-handedly propelled Nortel to the #1 position in the worldwide market share concerning small and medium business space.
The product was feature rich, well-priced, easy to install, and best of all, extremely reliable, which has allowed me to sell this system for almost two decades with an unshakeable sense of confidence. In fact, six years ago when I stopped actively selling the Norstar product, I took comfort knowing that the Telecom market was better served because the Norstar was around; kind of like my security blanket.
But, as the old adage says, all good things must come to an end, and with that I’m sad to announce that Norstar has reached the end of its impressive run.
When Avaya took over Nortel’s telecom assets they didn’t hide the fact that Norstar would be discontinued sometime in the near future, and the impending official announcement came on May 4th, 2010 with the following Avaya press release:
Due to higher than expected demand and earlier than anticipated component obsolescence, Avaya must announce the End-of-Sale (EoS) for new systems of Norstar 3×8, CICS, MICS, and Call Pilot 100/150 products, effective October 4, 2010.
Subject to availability, the latest date for orders to be placed for these products is October 4, 2010. Thereafter, these codes will be removed from price lists and associated order entry systems. Stock will be reserved to meet requirements for warranty returns and repairs.
The good news for Norstar users, however, is that Avaya is committed to providing technical support on the system for an additional three years – until October 2013.
As I stop for a moment to remember the impact Norstar had on the telecommunications industry, I am encouraged by the fact that many other reliable and innovative solutions still remain available on the market, as there are yet many other competing systems that offer the same reliable, feature rich products that will easily fill the product void left by this once innovative system.
In fact, even without Norstar, Avaya still boasts not only the advanced IP Office, but Cisco’s UCME, ShoreTel, Mitel, NEC, Asterisk, hosted solutions, and many others as well.
It’s the end of a technical era and the beginning of a new one.
The following note was written by Anthony Bartolo from Avaya with respect to the Norstar product line.
Today, we issued an End of Sale (EOS) notification for Norstar (see the Avaya Partner Portal. This was not an announcement we planned to make and a great deal of thought went into what the optimal actions needed to be. Ultimately, we were faced with a situation where demand was greater than forecasted and Norstar parts were rapidly running out. Our last buy on some of these parts, in fact, was made several years ago so we could not have anticipated this situation. While we are still five full months away from an effective end of sale date, we do acknowledge that in January we announced a nine-month notice for all major Nortel Enterprise Solutions (NES) products – but this had to be an exception. That said, we are making an additional exception for Norstar that you will like – that also applies to Business Communications Manager (BCM) (which remains for sale and is not impacted by this EOS announcement. In addition to the three-year support policy for hardware that applies to all Avaya products after any effective end of sale date, we will make an exception by matching that with three years of software support. This is above the standard one-year support for software that is our EOS policy.
I remember the first time I saw the Norstar line,I was charged with an install with United Telephone - Sprint, in central Fl.I really liked the looks of the phones and the hard Feature key,somehow stood out to me.This was back in 1990.I installed a few and serviced scores of them over the next 12 years.The Norstar was very reliable and easy to service.It's in the top 5,if not #1.
dwainrex
You have hit the nail on the head.. our industry of legacy, incompetent leaders, especially middle management, has caused teams that work well together to become narcissistic tyrants. Nortel/Avaya don't want folks who can think, they want yes men!! Kiss Arse brown nosers! I had manager who created dissension with in the ranks. One FAT HEAD, in Nortel Enterprise who was the biggest dip stick ever, forced us to always go on customer sites due to escalations, by withholding support that would fix the problem, he would piss off the customer and then the customer would escalate and send us (mostly me) to the customers site. Then he would get the credit, on how he saved the day. It's called the "Mighty Mouse Theory", "Here I come to save the day!!". It was a bunch of political BS!!
legalrobbery
Excellent post protosphere. You have hit the nail on the head.
protosphere
In its celebration of life and final hours of a death rattle, in a comatose under palliative care state, I do not not reflect on this bankrupt fraud dogs past achievements.
Sure they had their day as the largest traded stock, full of proud brilliant innovation for a century, Meridian/Norstar, once pioneers and leaders in optical, CDMA wireless, manufactured great durable wireline handsets before they too turned cheap... Mismanagement and decline was followed by Roth envy than repair that resulted in ongoing layoffs and tanking.
Admirable is not what this wet Gremlin evolved into before it died and a far cry from where it is today.
One must more currently look how even the new bonus happy puppet masters can escape unscathed, failed green management transferred, plea bargain, refuse to charge than defend past officers, etc., so these chronic lies for theft while killing a large company, shareholders, and employees never happens again.
One consistently and proven poster over the years has explained on Yahoo message board how a $400 billion market cap loss equal stealing every house in Toronto! .... certainly enough to thwart any home invasion on such a massive scale like a silent hurricane Katrina...imagine stealing Canada's largest city and getting away with it in Canada's largest fraud and untold damages.
Powerful people must be impervious. It seems past airbus gate Prime Ministers, Attorney Generals, air force base commander who shake hands a government leader that denied Afghan abuse, etc., feel they can do whatever they want too.
Even the government who once supported them are powerless as these bonus happy ultimatum artists of delay and deceit liquidate immediately after their bells on templated forced government inquiries with enough legal power to rewrite the laws of physics, as fraud trials loom on both sides of the border.
$400B = 1 million houses at $400K each, makes Enron look small as this good poster on Yahoo put it!
One should rejoice it is gone and not sure about R.I.P. for the endless events this evil empire has done over the last few years, endless.
May the Dept. of Justice eventually issue a mountain of subpoenas without a gag order as we have here as one of our ex-Liberal finance minister's law firms (who sat on Nortel's board while Dunn sues his company for wrongful dismissal), defend him from criminal fraud.
The events have been endless and beyond belief as we bellyache over the years on our soap box.
yes4aapl
$400B = 1 million houses at $400K each, makes Enron look small as this good poster on Yahoo put it!
-----
re
It was big, wasn't it?
I don't recall bigger stock collapsing from inflated $120 Can to zero with the market cap of around $400 bill /4 bill common shares/
Parasites were feeding on NT stock all the way up and even all the way down knowing in advance the stock will collapse to zero. It's not difficult who benefited the most from NT going up and going down.
example
BCE sold short more than 50 mill shares at $90 and covered it at about $10
$1 bill in profits at $70 was not enough /they held short position longer
$2 bill in profits at $ 50 was not enough /they held short position longer
$3 bill in profits at $30 was not enough /they held short position longer
$4 bill in profits at around $10 they decided that it's time to cover up and take profits as the last $10 was just peanuts.
Who decided to short NT stock for BCE?
ex Nortel's CEO who knew how he inflated the stock to $100 and more
Was he the one who groomed J Roth?
Public knows that, RCMP knows, Government knows, who what why when decided to kill Nortel and to rob small investors of around $400 bill, the value of 1 mill houses, the city of Toronto's size.
It's time for trials and testimonies of F Dunn & comp.
Message for Frank
There are things bigger than money, things better than houses and fast cars.
Ask yourself what you should do. Surprise the public. Public will forgive you but public should remember to teach new generations of an honest business.
I pray for God's forgiveness and blessings for your family.
protosphere
It seems as though there are different laws for big guys and little guys in Canada.
While blue collar crime is deterred by years of incarceration, white collar crime is rewarded.
If one is big enough in the Canadian establishment they seem immune ( I wonder how our ex-Attorney General will fair in his manslaugter trial). Nortel heads get bonuses, plea bargain and immunity, hundreds of millions in new lawsuit insurance to rewrite the laws of physics that gets paid before creditors, etc., and can even have an ex-finance minister's law firm represent the top defendant under a gag order like a totalitarian state.
Nortel has a handful or two of so few fall guys for largest mass orchestrated fraud that resulted in $400B market cap loss while hundreds are charged in only a $30M fraud as per the article below. How does Nortel get away with this?
Many laws aside from bankruptcy laws must be changed in fraud haven Canada. Getting tough on crime can not be restricted to blue collar crime that results in exponentially less damage than white collar crime that thwarts any home invasion to take the entire house gets defended and rewarded. In Nortel's case, millions of houses, thousands of lives, endless untold unfathomable horror in damage, as it disappears to sweep the past under a rug.
Keeps claiming bonuses while Manley's law firm defends Dunn under a gag order after the timely resigned pas plea bargained board and a CEO who defrauded from day one promoted a criminally charged pal that gets transferred and bonuses for tanking his area with inexperience. Endless beyond belief stunts at Nortel, endless... I wonder what we don't know. why is the government so powerless as ultimatum Nortel liquidates the day following a forced inquiry. Who can change anything when the fox looks after the chicken coup like our OSC, acting contrary to what they are there to do.
Some fair and competent process relative to the US' Dept. of Justice that isn't shy to hand out quarter century sentences to the likes of Ebbers and Skilling while Dunn has ex-Liberal finance minsiter and Nortel board member John Manley's law firm to defend him as Dunn also sues for wrongful dismissal with proceedings under gag order like a totalitarian state in fraud haven Canada. Amazing...
4merEmployee22
So Long "NORSTAR"..... it's been good to know you and worked with you!.
When your time comes to an end ..."MAY YOU REST IN PEACE"
"You are always on my mind. You were always on my mind"
RIP, Nortel Norstar
Over my 19 years in the Telecom business almost everything has changed, as telecom technology continues to advance at a rapid rate. One of the things that had never changed, however, was the presence of the Norstar phone system. The once innovative product was introduced sometime in the late 1980’s, and its fantastic twenty year run has always demonstrated to me its overall superior quality.
In fact, I would classify the Norstar as, by far, the best phone system of its time, as it single-handedly propelled Nortel to the #1 position in the worldwide market share concerning small and medium business space.
The product was feature rich, well-priced, easy to install, and best of all, extremely reliable, which has allowed me to sell this system for almost two decades with an unshakeable sense of confidence. In fact, six years ago when I stopped actively selling the Norstar product, I took comfort knowing that the Telecom market was better served because the Norstar was around; kind of like my security blanket.
But, as the old adage says, all good things must come to an end, and with that I’m sad to announce that Norstar has reached the end of its impressive run.
When Avaya took over Nortel’s telecom assets they didn’t hide the fact that Norstar would be discontinued sometime in the near future, and the impending official announcement came on May 4th, 2010 with the following Avaya press release:
Due to higher than expected demand and earlier than anticipated component obsolescence, Avaya must announce the End-of-Sale (EoS) for new systems of Norstar 3×8, CICS, MICS, and Call Pilot 100/150 products, effective October 4, 2010.
Subject to availability, the latest date for orders to be placed for these products is October 4, 2010. Thereafter, these codes will be removed from price lists and associated order entry systems. Stock will be reserved to meet requirements for warranty returns and repairs.
The good news for Norstar users, however, is that Avaya is committed to providing technical support on the system for an additional three years – until October 2013.
As I stop for a moment to remember the impact Norstar had on the telecommunications industry, I am encouraged by the fact that many other reliable and innovative solutions still remain available on the market, as there are yet many other competing systems that offer the same reliable, feature rich products that will easily fill the product void left by this once innovative system.
In fact, even without Norstar, Avaya still boasts not only the advanced IP Office, but Cisco’s UCME, ShoreTel, Mitel, NEC, Asterisk, hosted solutions, and many others as well.
It’s the end of a technical era and the beginning of a new one.
The following note was written by Anthony Bartolo from Avaya with respect to the Norstar product line.
Today, we issued an End of Sale (EOS) notification for Norstar (see the Avaya Partner Portal. This was not an announcement we planned to make and a great deal of thought went into what the optimal actions needed to be. Ultimately, we were faced with a situation where demand was greater than forecasted and Norstar parts were rapidly running out. Our last buy on some of these parts, in fact, was made several years ago so we could not have anticipated this situation. While we are still five full months away from an effective end of sale date, we do acknowledge that in January we announced a nine-month notice for all major Nortel Enterprise Solutions (NES) products – but this had to be an exception. That said, we are making an additional exception for Norstar that you will like – that also applies to Business Communications Manager (BCM) (which remains for sale and is not impacted by this EOS announcement. In addition to the three-year support policy for hardware that applies to all Avaya products after any effective end of sale date, we will make an exception by matching that with three years of software support. This is above the standard one-year support for software that is our EOS policy.