Far Side

Mike Z.’s Nortel Legacy: A Colossal Failure

The number of employees left in Canada is less than 3000 - why should the government even bother to bail out Nortel when it chiefly operates out of the US? It may be prudent for the government to hire all of their engineers into NRC as it will be much cheaper!

To add insult to injury, the CEO lives in an apartment during the week and commutes from Chicago weekly. Maybe, he should be groveling to Obama for a lifeline....

Mike Z.’s Nortel Legacy: A Colossal Failure

The number of employees left in Canada is less than 3000 - why should the government even bother to bail out Nortel when it chiefly operates out of the US? It may be prudent for the government to hire all of their engineers into NRC as it will be much cheaper!

To add insult to injury, the CEO lives in an apartment during the week and commutes from Chicago weekly. Maybe, he should be groveling to Obama for a lifeline....

Mike Z.’s Nortel Legacy: A Colossal Failure

I worked for Nortel, saw the problem develop in 1997 when I was in Customer Service, moved to IS to shore up my resume for future exit, got the pink slip in early 2002 because I flagged accounting impropriety to Micky Verma, and took my pension and payout with me.

I predicted the OSC/SEC probe, flagged 6 restatements in 2002, knew that all past M&As were under water, saw the failures of Frank Dunn and Bill Owen, and wondered how a light bulb C-Level manager with a troubled track record in Motorola could possibly turn Nortel around.

In this particular case, nostalgia aside, I truly believe that dismantling Nortel at this point is the only option, given that idiots, imbeciles, and stupid people were appointed to the board and that their successive choices of CEOs were just that.

Roth was a good leader but rather immature in understanding M&A finance and future projections. The acquisition of Xyros and Clarify was like buying companies with no future integrated value.

Indeed, acquiring Bay Networks was good BUT the merger was completely mis-handled. Trouble started when their Junior managers were brought in as "directors" and when their products were simple compared to the DMS switch. Most of the Bay people jumped ship over time and they product lines took too long to integrate.

At the end of the day, the whole sales and marketing area was flawed as sales incentives were based on % and multiple sales people hit the same customers with their own products assigned. Turf battles erupted and many customers got turned off.

Nortel management, throughout the last 10 years, suffered from deep narcissism and huge egos. They stopped listening and started to turn on their own staff who did not agree with them. This made for cloned managers who survived through brown nosing and carrying out instructions without question. Now these line managers will be welcomed with fork and knife when they get the pink slips as they were the same who hurt so many lives without proper reason or logic, just to save their own skins.

I wish all my colleagues good luck as there is life after Nortel

Canadian Government Finally Interested in Nortel: Too Little, Too Late

I can not understand why this moron is allowed to continue performing as a CEO and being paid more than a $? Even a simpleton line manager at Nortel could have done better. I guess being a village bully and climbing up the ladder through intimidation and hood winking does pay off - see how his Motorola division is performing when he left...