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Philippe Morin talks more about the MEN business

Philippe Morin Philippe Morin, Nortel President of Metro Ethernet NetworksPhilippe Morin, President of Nortel’s Metro Ethernet Networks (MEN) business, has been busy since last week’s announcement that Nortel intends to sell the business.  Earlier this week, Philippe did a “mini media tour,” talking to multiple media pubs about Nortel’s plans to divest the business.  Below are links to the resulting articles, as well as a few nuggets that I’ve pulled from each.

Network World’s Jim Duffy talked to Philippe Morin yesterday and wrote this article — “Nortel looks to software as it shops Metro Ethernet unit.”  The article focuses on the overall shift for Nortel to “a more software-driven business model.”  Morin is quoted in the article with this comment: “”Nortel is really stating that it’s now going to focus on more of an application services focus — what we basically call ICT [Information, Communication and Technology]. When you look at MEN… it’s addressing a unique market - different from all of the other businesses at Nortel - and it’s a market that requires consolidation.”

Philippe also talked to Simon Avery of the Globe & Mail, which resulted in this article, which says Nortel has “has seen interest from potential buyers around the world.”  The article also speculates a bit on vendors with possible interest.

Comments

  1. Bo

    what is the actual revenue from the MEN unit,as according to Nortel’s 2007 annual report it is $1.525b,yet Morin mentions in the LightReading article that it is a $2 billion business including services?

    what is the actual total revenue segment associated with MEN,and would that be included in the potential sale?

  2. Hey Bill - as you know, Nortel now separates out “professional services” revenues into it’s own bucket (which I believe recently was about 20% of total Nortel revenues). You are right about the official MEN revenues for 2007 being ~$1.5B. Philippe is pooling in the related MEN services revenue when providing that $2B number (which the LR article highlights).

    For your last question about what would be included in the potential sale, that would be determined as part of negotiations with a potential buyer.

  3. Nortel thinks, that they can take all their customers for a fool…
    Even in a settled market as MEN with probably little or no potential for further grow, NOBODY sells his “most valuable asset” unless the company is in BIG trouble raising capital.
    Sadly, but Nortel is done…

  4. Bo/Mr. Morin,
    not sure if you can comment on this, but how would nortel separate ERS (under Hackney) from MERS (under MEN) without risking any IP? also the WDM PON initiative with LG, is it part of this potinitial deal? and if it is not included, how would the WDM PON it survive without the optical talent backing it up?

  5. Hey commentor - The ERS and MERS product lines do share some hardware, but the software streams on the two platforms are very different — for the purposes of targeting carrier versus enterprise needs — which from what I understand would alleviate most of those concerns.

    As for the WDM-PON initiative. Nortel’s WDM-PON solution is part of LG-Nortel - a joint venture of LG Electronics and Nortel – and not explicitly part of the MEN portfolio.

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