All About Nortel

You may be asking: “Who’s Rudolph Kriegler, and why does Nortel need more of him?”.
Good question.
Rudolph Kriegler, one 75 new appointments to the Order of Canada, joined Nortel after escaping Hungary in 1956. He made his mark at Nortel by making important discoveries in silicon and advances in optoelectronics, which led to the development of [...]

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Nortel’s Canadian heritage is taking another small step backward amid news that it will close its Westwinds Innovation Centre operations by next year.
The facility, which most conducts R&D on a 59-acre site, employs 400 people. According to Nortel’s Web site, the Calgary camus has “been recognized for quality and employee relations by the Canada Awards [...]

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In the wake of Nortel’s new R&D strategy, the analyst community has bee fairly quiet.
Deutsche Bank analyst Brian Modoff, who is among the most “colorful” commenters, seems to be unconvinced the new approach to R&D will make a difference.
“(Nortel’s) pursuing multiple-end markets, so it’s jack of all trades but master of none,” he told [...]

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A week after CTO John Roese unveiled that Nortel’s R&D activities would be re-focused, Nortel provides some more details about what’s happening.
The highlight - and this should come as no surprise - is that more R&D will be happening in China involving all four of the company’s business units. For Canadians worried about Nortel’s extensive [...]

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There have been suggestions on a number of fronts that Nortel is spending way too much on R&D - 17% of total sales - so it does not come as much of a surprise to see CTO John Roese talk about the company’s plans to overhaul its R&D operations.
In a speech in Ottawa, Roese said [...]

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Canada’s leading research and development companies spent 3.8% less in 2006, according to Research Infosource Inc. - which really begs the question why it took nearly 10 months to compile this information given we live in a digital age where information is more readily available than ever before.
Nortel continues to be the leading R&D player [...]

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In a cost-cutting move that also takes advantage of China’s growing pool of engineering talent, Nortel plans to boost the number of engineers in China.
Jackson Wu, who heads up Nortel’s Chinese operations, told Bloomberg News that “a significant portion” R&D jobs will move to China because “the difference in costs is just too big”. He [...]

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With Wi-Max one of its strategic priorities, Nortel is spending $100-million on R&D to develop the technology as opposed to $10-million a year ago. The dramatic increase is one component of Nortel’s new approach to R&D, which is focused on emerging technology rather than “late life cycle products”. John Roese, Nortel’s CTO, said a year [...]

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The Globe and Mail has an article today looking at Nortel’s R&D operations/campus in Ottawa, which consist of 4,000 people and two Tim Horton’s coffee shops. The story is based on an interview with CTO John Roese (check out his blog), who talks about how Nortel’s need to better focused and more efficient when it [...]

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By now, everyone knows Nortel is counting on WiMax as a key strategic pillar. For more check out an interview with Peter MacKinnon, general manager of Nortel’s WiMAX business unit and chairman of the LG-Nortel joint venture, who said his team lobbied to increase the WiMax-related R&D budget to $50-million a year from $25-million in [...]

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