Interesting People mailing list archives

Re: Nortel files for bankruptcy


From: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2009 13:34:16 -0500



Begin forwarded message:

From: Claudio Gutierrez <claudio.gutierrez.m () gmail com>
Date: January 14, 2009 1:03:12 PM EST
To: dave () farber net, jsq () quarterman org
Subject: Re: [IP] Nortel files for bankruptcy

Dave, John
    Nortel had a long history of failed acquisitions (add Clarify and
Alteon acquisitions for about $10 bn) and not integrating the new
products in an shared vision. Nortel is a case study about how not to
do merger & acquisitions and being late in emerging technologies, just
to get on the train and acquire companies when they were already big
and expensive. As an example of Nortel being late, we had talks with
them in 2002 about IP telephony and they were dismissing it because it
didn't offer the same features as legacy telephony.

Cisco was the  contrary: almost all their acquisitions (except
StrataCom) were of small and innovative companies, in fact they have
bought companies without any RTM product!

Regards
Claudio

On Wed, Jan 14, 2009 at 2:08 PM, David Farber <dave () farber net> wrote:


Begin forwarded message:

From: "John S. Quarterman" <jsq () quarterman org>
Date: January 14, 2009 10:10:50 AM EST
To: dave () farber net
Cc: "John S. Quarterman" <jsq () quarterman org>
Subject: Nortel files for bankruptcy

Dave,

For IP:

"WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- Nortel Networks Corp., once the largest
company in Canada, has filed for bankruptcy protection, victimized by
the deepening economic slump."

http://tinyurl.com/6uny75

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/nortel-files-bankruptcy-protection/story.aspx?guid= {824CFA6D-C3EA-4C0B-AF3C-4D559F38A401}&dist=TQP_Mod_mktwN


Back in 1998, Nortel bought into the Internet business by
purchasing Bay Networks for $9.1 billion:

http://news.cnet.com/Nortel-buys-Bay-for-9-billion/2100-1001_3-212264.html

followed by purchases of Cambrian Systems for $300 million:

http://news.cnet.com/2100-1033-218880.html&tag=mncol%3btxt

and Shasta Networks for $340 million:

http://news.cnet.com/Nortel-buys-start-up-Shasta-Networks/2100-1033_3-224344.html

And perhaps plus others I don't recall.

As recently as August 2008 Nortel bought DiamondWare (3D stereo
conferencing):

http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/att/nortel-buys-diamondware.html

and Pingtel (SIP software), seeking to be a player in "unified
communications":

http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=161446

But apparently buying into a new market didn't work for Nortel this time.

-jsq




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