Nortel Buzzboard

Recently here at Nortel’s Richardson campus we had a “technology day” that allows the entire employee base to get an inside view on the various labs and customer showrooms that we have on campus. I took the opportunity to take a few pictures and a little video of the event.

Various R&D and tech leaders set up peds in the Nortel cafeteria to talk about the areas they focused on. You can see a quick video of that part of the event here:

In addition, employees were able to sign up for tours of the various local Nortel labs and customer showcase areas. Below are some …

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I listened in on Nortel’s 2Q08 earnings call this morning, led by Nortel CEO Mike Zafirovski and CIO CFO Pavi Binning. You can access their presentations slides and hear a replay of the call here if you are interested.

Below are a few interesting points that I took from the call (not necessarily in order of the conversation on the call).

Revenue for the quarter was at $2.6 billion, up 2% year-over-year. For 1H08, Nortel’s revenue is now up 7% YoY.
Mike Z and Pavi Binning highlighted several times the continued progress with gross margins and operating margins. In the press release, Mike Z highlights: “We delivered gross margin of 43.1%, the seventh consecutive quarter of year-over-year improvement, and management operating margin of 4.3%, the eighth consecutive quarter of year-over-year improvement.”
The presentation highlighted gross margin improvements in Carrier Networks, Enterprise Solutions, and Global Services.
The presentation highlighted “significant improvements in G&A,” driven by cost reductions in IT and finance.
Mike Z said that in the second half of 2008, Nortel would be increasing and refocusing sales resources to focus on the growth segments of 40gig and unified communications
Mike Z said that: We have invested heavily in Enterprise and MEN, and we are starting to see the trajectory to growth in those areas.
A quick mention of an org change was mentioned, as Samih Elhage was announced as the new leader of the Carrier VoIP and Applications business.
Carrier Networks: quarterly revenue was down 2% YoY. CDMA revenue down 10%, with GSM/UMTS revenue up 11% YoY. The decrease in CDMA revenues, along with comments during the presentation of a slowdown in U.S. carrier spending were discussed during the call. One analyst asked about Nortel’s CDMA market share, to which Mike Z responded: “…certainly over the last couple of years we have gained [CDMA] market share and we don’t expect to lose that going forward.”
Enterprise Solutions: revenues were up 3% YoY. Gross margins increased while management operating margins decreased, reflecting increased marketing and R&D spending in the area. An analyst point out that the enterprise businesses still didn’t have a positive margin, and asked Mike Z how confident he was in this changing in 2H08. Mike Z commented that gross margin in the enterprise business had improved nicely in the quarter, and that Nortel expects enterprise to have a positive OM in the 2nd half.
Metro Ethernet: Revenues were up 4% YoY, with gross margins flat and management operating margin up. Several times during the presentation, Mike Z highlighted the growing momentum for Nortel’s 40gig solution. Nortel now has twenty 40gig wins, plus five tier one trials. Mike highlighted that at the last update (the analyst day event) that number was at 14 wins.
Global Services: Revenues were up 9%, with higher gross margins and management operating margins. A quick calculation shows that Global Services accounted for just over 20% of Nortel’s total revenues in 2Q08.

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In another example of Nortel’s ever-expanding foray into the brave new world of social media, Nortel has just gone live with another new blog on blogs.nortel.com.

This latest blog is focused on Voice Security - and you can find it here: http://blogs.nortel.com/voicesecurity/

Unlike Buzzboard’s broad scope, this new blog is laser-focused on everything Voice Security. Lawrence Dobranski is the primary blogger for the new page, and has been in the IT Security industry nearly 25 years.

Last week I took a break from my unending efforts to spread Nortel’s reach across all things new media, and talked to Lawrence Dobranski about the new blog. You can see that conversation below.

While you read this, I’m off to figure out …

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Didn’t the whole industry just get back from Las Vegas…several times? First CTIA Wireless, then Interop, now NXTcomm08. NXTcomm08 is of course the reincarnation of SuperComm, and is mainly focused on the carrier and service provider side of things.

And just like with previous shows, here on Buzzboard we’ll keep you in the loop on that Nortel has going at the event. I have a suspicion that Nortel will be announcing some news at the show, and we’ll cover that. We will also hopefully bring you some pictures and video from the booth.

If you happen to be headed out to NXTcomm, here’s a quick summary of what you can …

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The big news that came out yesterday from Verizon is that VZW is buying Alltel in a deal valued at $28.1 billion. But completely crushed underneath the weight of that big news was another announcement that Verizon made yesterday. While it didn’t have the glamor of a multi-billion dollar acquisition, Verizon’s other release should be of interest to this blog’s readers, as well as the equipment vendors that sell to Verizon.

Yesterday, Verizon announced that it had provided the manufacturers of certain equipment a “target” for getting 20 percent greater efficiency than today’s gear does by January 1, 2009.

For those of you without a calendar, that’s just over 6 months away.

To do this, Verizon said that it …

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Click here to call me at home.

No, that doesn’t work yet, but this week Nortel unveiled a new solution called the IP Powered Home that makes it possible.  Targeted at service providers, IP Powered Home is essentially a bundle of consumer-based applications that merge phone, Internet, and TV services in the home.

The solution uses residential VoIP as a base, then adds on optional services that customers can subscribe to from their service provider (much like today’s residential voice service model).

The core solution provides VoIP lines for each member of the family, a single number for both home and mobile phones, and video calling features.  Customers can set up call routing preferences based on …

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