All About Nortel

For the first time more than two years, Nortel has made an acquisition by coughing up $26-million for Novera Optics, which makes low-cost, high-performance optical access technology based on WDM-PON (Wavelength Division Multiplexed Passive Optical Network) technology.
Novera sells into markets such as FTTB (Fiber-To-The-Building) and FTTC (Fiber-To-The-Curb) extensions, MxU (Multi-Dwelling and Multi-Tenant Units), RT [...]

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Lots of stuff coming out of the AGM. Among the most interesting is a Reuters story in which Mike Zafirvoski suggests Nortel could make acquisitions to fuel growth but it will refrain given tighter credit markets.
“In the current environment, of course, financing is a challenge relative to where it was a year ago,” he said, [...]

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Motorola looks increasingly vulnerable these days after it posted a 21% decline in first-quarter sales and a net loss of $194-million. The big shocker was a 40% drop in the mobile phone business to $2.1-billion.
With Motorola scrambling financially, maybe the idea of a marriage/deal with Nortel looks more appealing as a way for two struggling [...]

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According to India’s The Financial Express, Nortel may be planning on selling its 11.31% stake in Sasken Communication Technologies Ltd., a Bangalore-based telecom R&D firm that Nortel invested $10-million in three years ago.
Sasken, which has worked with Nortel since 1991 on many of its GSM technologies, may back the stake back from Nortel. Its board [...]

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Motorola plans to split into into two publicly-traded companies - one involving its home and networks business (set-top boxes, modems, enterprise equipment), and a second involving its wireless phone business.
The move comes amid pressure from investors, include billionaire Carl Icahn, for Motorola to restructure given its sluggish performance and the struggles of the wireless device [...]

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Admittedly, acquisitions are difficult to make given you need to find the find technology and the right team at the right place.
But why can’t Nortel, which desperately needs a strategic spark of any kind, acquire a start-up(s) with exciting prospects that would give people a sense that senior management has a vision of the future [...]

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Here’s a crazy thought: Nortel is ripe for a takeover - probably by one of those shark-like private equity investors, provided they’re not spooked by the telecom equipment market and the volatile credit environment.
Here’s why:
Nortel has a market capitalization of $3.52-billion and cash of $3.53-billion. This means someone could purchase Nortel, and then cover the [...]

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According to Thomson Financial News, Siemens’s talks with Nortel Networks and investor Matlin Patterson over the sale of its Siemens enterprise communications division are “stagnating”.

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There’s speculation and then there’s out and out dreaming, which is what Alex Lewis must be doing on Network World when he talks about Microsoft buying Nortel.
“MS could purchase Nortel , disassemble and sell off the parts it doesn’t want. The acquisition would give MS a true end to end solution, like Cisco, but [...]

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While investors yawned at Nortel’s speculated JV with Motorola, Nortel CEO Mike Zafirovski was talking the talk about the company’s strong prospects in 4G.
“4G allows us to get a new competitive position,” Mike Z.i told MarketWatch. He added that Nortel is interested in making acquisitions at the right price but declined to comment on [...]

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