What does the future hold for Nortel?

[Michael McNamara]

On January 15, 2009 I asked folks from my blog what they thought about Nortel filling for bankruptcy and what action they might consider if anything. I've had 342 responses to that poll where 69% of respondents where willing to take a "wait and see" approach to Nortel's filing. Another 17% were going to "jump ship" and the remaining 14% were unaffected by the news.

It's been six months since Nortel's bankruptcy filing and I'm curious what folks think today. Has your position changed?

I'm guessing that this question is going to have a different response depending on if the user is a Nortel voice customer and/or a Nortel data customer. I would believe that the Nortel voice customers are in a better position that say the Nortel data customers only because of the large number of Nortel resellers that directly service the legacy Nortel Meridian and Norstar systems.

I don't want to influence people too much so I'll stay mum for a short while and then chime in with my thoughts and the rationale.

Cheers!

Mike

[svl0r]

Bay Networks may come back!

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2009/070209-nortel-bay-networks.html?page=1

[Michael McNamara]

I saw that article and had a good laugh.

The problem right now as I understand it is that Nortel is encumbered with all this bad debt. Even though the enterprise division is making money, yes revenue is down sharply over last year because of the bankruptcy announcement, it's the only asset that creditors have to recoup any losses they have suffered. While you could certainly spin the enterprise division off from Nortel back into a standalone organization such as "BayNetworks" the creditors would never allow it because they wouldn't get their pound of flesh, sorry I meant cash.

Mark Evans has a very interesting blog called All About Nortel that is quite amusing at times.

Cheers!

[Wouter de Jong]

Is Avaya taking over everything that is left of Nortel ?
Not really sure what 'Enterprise Solutions Business' covers within Nortel...

[Michael McNamara]

It certainly looks like Avaya is going to be the winner unless someone else comes up with a better (higher) bid than $475 million.

http://blog.michaelfmcnamara.com/2009/07/and-the-winner-is-avaya/

Nortel's Enterprise division includes both their data and voice products and solutions.

You also have to wonder about all the employees at Nortel. There's going to be a lot of duplicate departments if the transaction goes through and I fear a lot of folks are going to be shown the door since Avaya already has a significant voice presence in the continental United States and Canada. As mentioned by a few folks around the net you've got to wonder what Avaya is going to-do with the Nortel voice solutions since they (Avaya) already have a competing portfolio.

[Michael McNamara]

Well the bids where due on Friday now we just need to wait until this Friday, September 11, 2009 for the actual auction.

http://blog.michaelfmcnamara.com/2009/09/all-offers-due-friday/

Cheers!

[Vince]

Speaking to some staff at the Nortel Toronto offices and they think it may be one of the following:

Avaya
Siemens-Gore
HP
Matlin Paterson

However as the days come closer I am sure that there will be many more companies putting in a bid.

As a Canadian I hope that who ever buys this unit will make some effort to keep jobs in Canada and abrod rather than bring the technology back home.

[Michael McNamara]

It looks like Verizon threw a wrench into the auction yesterday...

Have a look was Mark Evans has to say about the whole affair over on All About Nortel

Will it ever end?