Nortel Networks to break in pieces; sell units to Nokia Siemens

[scandal 951]

Very sad end to a once proud company.

I worked at Nortel for about 6 years in the 1990s, it was my first job out of college and where I learned how to develop and appreciate the complexities of large-scale real time fault tolerant software systems.

In the heyday, Nortel was a high flying stock and dominated the TSE. Now it's traded on Pinksheets, in bankruptcy, and being broken into pieces to be sold off.

There is a lot of blame to go around - terrible management decisions and outright accounting fraud and revenue manipulation.

But also, there is a real loss as the one-time flagship of Canada's high tech industry, a company that can date its history back to Alexander Graham Bell, has come to this.

RIP Nortel

http://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/stories.../22/daily6.html

Monday, June 22, 2009, 11:43am EDT

Nortel Networks to break in pieces; sell units to Nokia Siemens

Atlanta Business Chronicle - by Frank Vinluan

Nortel Networks, which employs about 300 in metro Atlanta, is breaking itself into pieces with an agreement to sell two wireless technology divisions to Nokia Siemens Networks for $650 million.

Nortel also is moving forward in talks with other parties interested in buying its other businesses. Toronto-based Nortel filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in January. In recent months, there has been widespread speculation that the telecommunications equipment maker would sell off its business units.

Nortel (Pink Sheets: NRTLQ) also announced it would apply to delist its shares from the Toronto Stock Exchange.

Nortel announced the sales agreement with Nokia Siemens on June 19. Documents were filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday. Nokia Siemens is a joint venture between Finland-based Nokia and German company Siemens. Under the sales agreement, Nokia Siemens will buy Nortel’s CDMA and LTE divisions, which make infrastructure for wireless carriers, including Verizon Wireless.

The agreement calls for at least 2,500 employees to move over to Nokia Siemens. Nortel employs more than 25,000 globally. In the Triangle, the company employs about 2,000. It is unclear how the deal would affect Nortel’s RTP operations. Company officials were not immediately available for comment.

Nortel President and CEO Mike Zafirovski said in a statement that the agreement shows that Nortel’s business assets are valued in the telecommunications industry . He said that the company’s priority is maximizing the value of the company’s business even as the industry consolidates.

“We have determined the best way to do this is to find buyers for our businesses who can carry Nortel innovation forward, while preserving employment to the greatest extent possible,” he said.

[Heracles 417]

Scandal that explains a lot actually.

I was thrown out of a meeting and reprimanded for telling off their bullshit artist sales staff. Their equipment is absolute garbage.

Siemens and Ericcson made reliable equipment, as did lucent. We used to joke with the engineers that Siemens equipment had some sort of AI built into it.

Edited June 22, 2009 by Constellation