LastHopes

Why Nortel is Still Important to Canada

One of the best R&D Bell Labs (LUCENT) has been sold to France (Alcatel). Who is going to pay for Nortel's R&D? Canada or shareholders?

Obviously Huawei would make milk out of Nortel.
Price tag is very low: $7Bil debt - $2Bil cash + $1Bil Market Cap = $6Bil for a whole pie.
Chinese are very good at Buy/Sell, capitalized on the past R&D and destroy any future R&D. I am sure they are going to make huge profits out of it, but they will cut R&D to ZERO and are going to spend only on maintenance and support tasks("R&D"). It is all about profit, but not R&D.
Yes, Canada could convert Nortel to University or government supported lab, but I doubt it would fly.

BTW, the future of Nortel's R&D will be the same as the future of most of Corp acquired by Computer Associates. It is super B model. Buy cheap Corp with customer base and with huge past R&D investments, lay off 90% reduce R&D to 1% and make milk out of it.
It is modern scavenger/parasite model, but it works.