I think tougher questions need to be asked about Nortel. This was all the same old information that we've known for months. What about share price?? Zafirovski mentioned that they are on target for 2008..so does that mean shareholders will continued to get burned until then? Sure this all sounds great, but nothing of value has materialized as yet.
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Is this a joke? (Engineering perspective)
Anyone that has expereince with networking equipment from multiple vendors is not going to go with Nortel. The only reason that Nortel has sustained itslef is becuase of the good old boy network, and those business decisions that are made without real tehcnical talent being involved. There are also countless Telecommunications Engineers that have for years had to put in a very large amount of effort to remember all of those system load numbers. After 20 years of that they really don't want to learn anything new (Im sure you can understand where I'm going with this...). I have installed voice and data networks from most of the vendors out there and Nortel is probably the least desirable company to purchase from. There support in non-existent, their products are overpriced and lack basic features that many customers expect, and last but not least they have been in financial ruin for quite some time now.
So why is Nortel not a threat? Here are just a few examples that have convinced me. When at the EBC in SJ working with Nortel on a Hybrid Telephony migration, Nortel was kind enough to take myself and some collegues on a tour of their "state of the art" labs. One engineer demonstrated a new feature on their data switches that turned out to be Netflow (something that every other vendor has had for years). They also showed us the top secret lab that was a replicate of a major financial network, which is staffed 24/7 by Nortel. Any changes proposed to be made on this network have to be inplemented in this lab and vigorously tested prior to being implemented in the production environment. This in and of it self is not a bad thing, but it just goes to show how unreliable thier data networking devices realy are, especially after we asked why they needed such an environment. Last but not least Nortel has had to join forces with Microsoft in order to make any headway in the Unified Communications space. This deal is probably going to work out much better for Nortel than Microsoft, but it goes to show that Nortel does not have the R&D talent to get Unified Communications right. As some have suggested they will probably end up dumping many of their current hybrid offereings (despite what they tell their customers) within the next five years.
Cisco is not the best in every market, but that is obvious. Cisco needs to watch out for Juniper Networks in both the Security and ISP space. Juniper is already kicking ass in the security appliacnce space and will probably continue to hack away at the Cisco market share. Juniper's J series of routers are pretty worthless and they won't be taking any of Cisco's share there, but on the other hand the SSGs, just might challenge Cisco's ISRs in the branch office space. I personnally dislike many of Cisco's products, but feel that for the most part they do a pretty decent job supporting their product line.
Anyone thinking that Cisco needs to watch out for Nortel needs to have their head examined!
Interesting Read BUT no
Interesting Read BUT no substance. I guess installing telecomms equipment in a technician capacity takes a little less thought processing than Engineering product design.
"how unreliable thier data networking devices realy are, especially after we asked why they needed such an environment"
Which begs the question why do RollRoyce and Airbus have such environments to test their s/w, h/w designs - simple reason really - its better for problems to happen in the test environment than the real environment - think about that comment the next time your on a long haul flight..... and think to yourself i wonder to Airbus really need that test enviroment.
You see the thing about comments posted on the internet is that they are just usually thoughless comments
Dr Z must have visited BC and had some BC Bud recently
The article and many responses raise a whole number of questions and comments.
First, customers, especially those that have a need to ensure privacy, security and reliability usually build their own test beds. After all, they run their applications on top to test them thoroughly. The only time manufacturers need to replicate this is when they have proven that their patches and upgrades have been so unreliable that the customer has told them, you do it first and ensure it works before we even drop into our test environment.
Second, GigE by itself is not going to win over huge amounts of market share. It would assume that Nortel had a huge lead on the market here but they don’t.
Third, Nortel support is horrid. It was never great before, but there were usually enough people that you knew that you could get an answer. Now those people have gone and you have to go through the standard channels. The standard response (to buy time) is to accuse the reseller/customer of doing something wrong, have your engineers spend copious hours tracking and submitting useless information until you get tough and call them on it. Then, many tens of patches later, the problem is sort of resolved. That cheaper product has suddenly cost you all the margin and more in handling the one in ten situations that you ran into a problem.
Fourth, Nortel has always had horrid administration interfaces. Why? Because resellers or others did the administrative work so why spend extra engineering dollars on this and it keeps the product cost down. To a previous point, it is a short term barrier to competitors when people whose whole life is based on knowing Nortel’s arcane administrative foibles, insist on more Nortel. But that only lasts so long. To people running resellers or managing large IT teams, the ongoing costs of managing Nortel networks becomes a cost too far.
Fifth, Nortel and Microsoft are two of kind. Both love talking up products either not available yet or before they are mainstream. Nortel spend copious time and effort berating Cisco for not having a standard PoE compliant phone and switch. We sold a customer a Nortel IP telephony solution only to find the Nortel phones were not PoE standards compliant. They would be, we were told, in 6 months time. 6 months came and went and we were told by Nortel more fool us for believing them. In other words, once they made the sale they didn’t care any more that not only had they lied to us but had lied to the customer and berated the competitor from the same thing they were doing. The problem was that the customer had upgraded their Cisco network to PoE standards compliant switches. Oops.
Sixth, Nortel have done a patchwork job on the Enterprise, particularly in data networking. At least Juniper, Aruba, Extreme, HP, etc, have a focus. Nortel has none. Nortel’s only claim to fame was that at one point they had a fairly complete portfolio. But if one looks closer they have done a horrible job if integrating the portfolio and leveraging effectively. So today, they still approach it in a piecemeal way. Different support tools, OS, administrative, etc.
Seventh, if it weren’t for the fact that some of Nortel’s core areas are in places where there isn’t enough alternative demand, many more employees would have quit. For example, in Canada, there aren’t enough equivalent jobs in Calgary, Belleville, Brampton and Ottawa. So they stay while they look and have to make a decision of where to move.
Eighth, Microsoft had already worked with Nortel years ago when TAPI was developed. So there was a pre-existing history of development. Yet one person mentions this arrangement is to Nortel’s favour and another lists all the positive reasons Microsoft would want to use Nortel. Nortel owning the ‘carrier’ space was also mentioned – as in Pin Dropping – etc. But Nortel hasn’t thought through the ramifications of the Microsoft arrangement. Nortel made two attempts at IP telephony before dropping them after realising that it negated their Greenfield strategy. And they have an alternate option with their MCS 5100. But the current Greenfield strategy and the MCS5100 are both at risk because of this deal. Lots of headlines but it puts their cash cow at risk. What customer in their right mind is going to bet the farm on a financially unstable company who can’t lay out its 5 year enterprise strategy? And Lucent and Alcatel will have a significant share of the ‘carrier’ market – as long as it stays the same – and it isn’t. Cisco has taken the IP Video strategy to new heights – heights Nortel cannot reach. The ONLY area where Nortel plays and does reasonably well is in Wireless for mobile phones in North America. I think we will see that become core and some of the other pieces partitioned off.
Nortel just moved out of their headquarters in Brampton. Touted as this great model of working conditions, it had become a ghost town. If you know the place you will understand that it was an old factory that was done up to look like a city. Because of the height they had cityscapes on the walls and lighting from above, and areas were like boroughs and the rows between were set up like streets. Pretty funky really. Except it now belongs to Rogers. Oh yeah, and Rogers replaced the Nortel telephone system with a Cisco IP Telephony system for that building.
Finally, Z is simply blowing smoke. The writers always go nicely with CEOs. They are a little awed at the chance to meet these guys (and want future senior contact) so they always write articles that are pretty lightweight. And if they didn’t put the title of “Cisco should be scared” no one would have given the article a second look. Except we now have a whole post going.
"First, customers,
"First, customers, especially those that have a need to ensure privacy, security and reliability usually build their own test beds. After all, they run their applications on top to test them thoroughly. The only time manufacturers need to replicate this is when they have proven that their patches and upgrades have been so unreliable that the customer has told them, you do it first and ensure it works before we even drop into our test environment."
Nice! Another voice of reason is always apreciated!
Find something better to do
Find something better to do with your time - oh sorry, you must be an out of work Cisco trained technician. Nortel has it's problems, but Cisco's are much greater. Cisco will see it's time come, like the other arrogent companies like IBM, DEC, Wang. Cisco needs some products, not just a so called quasi charismatic wimp, to develop come actual products rather than purchasing technology that everyone else has, which by the way is much better. You would be better spent watching your under water stock options than spouting off a really irrelevant monotonous way too long diatribe, of which you know nothing about.
I've made so much money this
I've made so much money this year ripping out Nortel gear and replacing it with Cisco, that I was afforded the luxury of taking that last two months of the year off. BTW I don't know of anyone that knows Cisco's Voice line that is out of work...maybe you should check the job boards before making such outlandish claims. I do know quite a few individuals that work for and install Nortel that are looking for work.........
Save a tree, kill a PBX!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I'm sorry keeping a plane in
I'm sorry keeping a plane in the air is a bit more complex than keeping a network up and running...if you have nothing real to add to the discussion don't waste our time..........
RE: Interesting Read BUT no
Actually product design and configuration management are two very distinct items. Don't confuse product design with network management or network configuration! You obviously know nothing about the latter!
Is this a joke? (Engineering perspective), Probably
Obviously this was written by a Cisco bigot with one hand on this IOS and the other over his eyes. Pull your head out and smell the real world. There is a reason that Cisco is continuing to fall behind the rest of the world in Telephony Sales, their stuff doesn't hold up in the real world. Why is it that many Cisco sales offices keep non-Cisco phones in their offices. Could it be that they can't afford to miss that important customer call everytime their Call Mgr or Gateway dies.
If John Chambers had an ounce of common sense, he would try to buy one of the top 5 or 6 telephone companies to move Cisco up in the ranking and take one more competitor off the Gartner list.
Real Engineers don't rely on
Real Engineers don't rely on Gartner Magic Quadrant reoprts for their information! BTW I'm actually a Juniper bigot although I do hold a CCIE in addition to my JNCIE........Cisco and Avaya IPTel are both at least 20 times better than Nortel's solutions.
"their stuff doesn't hold up in the real world"
That is some good crack you're smoking, please share!
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