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Nortel didn't disappear because of Huawei. Chinese are used as scapegoats for everything these days. I used to work for Nortel and they went the way of the dod

Nortel didn't disappear because of Huawei. Chinese are used as scapegoats for everything these days. I used to work for Nortel and they went the way of the dodo because they were like Nokia (which ended the same way. I worked with them at some point as well...): Too bureaucratic, too slow, not hungry anymore, poor management. For their last CEO they ended up paying $12 million to Motorola because that guy breached the non-competition agreement he had when he took the job at Nortel... Just an example.

ineedasername 8y ago
I don't think you can dismiss the Chinese element in Nortel's downfall quite so easily. Undoubtedly Nortel made missteps themselves, but rarely does a large organization fail for just a single reason. In Nortel's case it definitely appears that China played a part. I think it can reasonably be argued from either side on whether or not China's activities served as a tipping point.
- entity345 8y ago
  It's not 'China'. It's new competitors that blew them out of the water, like Apple and Samsung did to Nokia, for the reasons I listed in my previous comment.
  - ineedasername 8y ago
    Except a major one of those new competitors appears to have been a Chinese company that benefited from misappropriated trade secrets and IP. As I said, more than one reason for a failure of this scale. As an example, Nortel might have emerged from bankruptcy intact, as many companies manage to do, had it not been for the financial collapse of 08'-09'. That downturn made it more difficult for Nortel to get competitive prices for the assets it was shedding in an attempt to emerge from bankruptcy. Prior to that, a contributing factor in the decision to declare bankruptcy in the first place was that it could not easily service its debt and retain enough working capital to support operations. It had plenty of cash on the books, but nearly all of it was in other countries and repatriating it presented very thorny problems. [0] As I said, no one simple reason. [0] http://www.ottawacitizen.com/business/Part+Last+things+first+Bankruptcy+protection/2164807/story.html http://www.ottawacitizen.com/business/Part+Last+things+first...
    - entity345 8y ago
      "misappropriated trade secrets": I read that as Nortel was poorly managed and handed those on a plate. That's business, if you're not smart others will be more than happy to abuse you. In this case Nortel essentially asked a competitor to manufacture their products from them... What could possibly go wrong? Your last point regarding cash is also an example of poor management in my book. It's too easy to always find scapegoats.
      - ineedasername 8y ago
        By misappropriated trade secrets I'm referring to the fairly well documented hacking of Nortel, not the willing hand-over of IP. [0][1][2] I also think it's simplistic to say their cash issue was purely an issue of poor management, as it resulted in part due to the unforeseen financial collapse at the time. Of course you can try to define both of those as "poor management" as well: Nortel should have protected itself better from hackers. Or they should have been prepared for a financial collapse on a scale not seen for 80 years. Under this type of reasoning, any problem at all for any company anywhere could be defined as "poor management" and that all companies fail from poor management. The problem is that this overly simplifies rather complex issues. It's a bit like saying "Everyone dies of heart failure." Because in every instance of death the heart has stopped beating. In every instance of a company failure, its managers failed to act in a way that might save the company, therefore management was poor. It neglects the difference between proximate causes and distal causes. It ignores that, for example, the heart may have stopped because a bullet hit an artery and a person lost too much blood. Back to companies, it ignores the difficult questions of "Why & How did management fail? What, if anything, could they have done differently given the knowledge they had at the time? Would those things have been enough?" [0]https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/report-chinese-hackers-breach-nortel-networks/2012/02/14/gIQApXsRDR_story.html?utm_term=.5e0a03710568 https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/report-ch... [1]https://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/02/15/nortel_breach/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/02/15/nortel_breach/ [2]https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/nortel-collapse-linked-to-chinese-hackers-1.1260591 https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/nortel-collapse-linked-to-c...
        8y ago
- deleted 8y ago
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- myrandomcomment 8y ago
  I was at Nortel (they acquired a startup I was at). I have never seen a more incompetently run company. Some of the stupid stuff they did was mind blowing. An example would be their acquisition of Alteon for near $8b when they could have had Foundry for less, except they would not make Bobby head of enterprise (where he would be useful) because of some old grudge over the Rapid City vs. Centilion beef internally (last gen of stuff they acquired - Bay Networks timeframe).
cr0sh 8y ago
> I used to work for Nortel and they went the way of the dodo because they were like Nokia (which ended the same way. I worked with them at some point as well...) Admit it - you're the real common link here... /s

ineedasername 8y ago

I don't think you can dismiss the Chinese element in Nortel's downfall quite so easily. Undoubtedly Nortel made missteps themselves, but rarely does a large organization fail for just a single reason. In Nortel's case it definitely appears that China played a part. I think it can reasonably be argued from either side on whether or not China's activities served as a tipping point.

entity345 8y ago
It's not 'China'. It's new competitors that blew them out of the water, like Apple and Samsung did to Nokia, for the reasons I listed in my previous comment.
- ineedasername 8y ago
  Except a major one of those new competitors appears to have been a Chinese company that benefited from misappropriated trade secrets and IP. As I said, more than one reason for a failure of this scale. As an example, Nortel might have emerged from bankruptcy intact, as many companies manage to do, had it not been for the financial collapse of 08'-09'. That downturn made it more difficult for Nortel to get competitive prices for the assets it was shedding in an attempt to emerge from bankruptcy. Prior to that, a contributing factor in the decision to declare bankruptcy in the first place was that it could not easily service its debt and retain enough working capital to support operations. It had plenty of cash on the books, but nearly all of it was in other countries and repatriating it presented very thorny problems. [0] As I said, no one simple reason. [0] http://www.ottawacitizen.com/business/Part+Last+things+first+Bankruptcy+protection/2164807/story.html http://www.ottawacitizen.com/business/Part+Last+things+first...
  - entity345 8y ago
    "misappropriated trade secrets": I read that as Nortel was poorly managed and handed those on a plate. That's business, if you're not smart others will be more than happy to abuse you. In this case Nortel essentially asked a competitor to manufacture their products from them... What could possibly go wrong? Your last point regarding cash is also an example of poor management in my book. It's too easy to always find scapegoats.
    - ineedasername 8y ago
      By misappropriated trade secrets I'm referring to the fairly well documented hacking of Nortel, not the willing hand-over of IP. [0][1][2] I also think it's simplistic to say their cash issue was purely an issue of poor management, as it resulted in part due to the unforeseen financial collapse at the time. Of course you can try to define both of those as "poor management" as well: Nortel should have protected itself better from hackers. Or they should have been prepared for a financial collapse on a scale not seen for 80 years. Under this type of reasoning, any problem at all for any company anywhere could be defined as "poor management" and that all companies fail from poor management. The problem is that this overly simplifies rather complex issues. It's a bit like saying "Everyone dies of heart failure." Because in every instance of death the heart has stopped beating. In every instance of a company failure, its managers failed to act in a way that might save the company, therefore management was poor. It neglects the difference between proximate causes and distal causes. It ignores that, for example, the heart may have stopped because a bullet hit an artery and a person lost too much blood. Back to companies, it ignores the difficult questions of "Why & How did management fail? What, if anything, could they have done differently given the knowledge they had at the time? Would those things have been enough?" [0]https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/report-chinese-hackers-breach-nortel-networks/2012/02/14/gIQApXsRDR_story.html?utm_term=.5e0a03710568 https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/report-ch... [1]https://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/02/15/nortel_breach/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/02/15/nortel_breach/ [2]https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/nortel-collapse-linked-to-chinese-hackers-1.1260591 https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/nortel-collapse-linked-to-c...
      - 8y ago
deleted 8y ago
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myrandomcomment 8y ago
I was at Nortel (they acquired a startup I was at). I have never seen a more incompetently run company. Some of the stupid stuff they did was mind blowing. An example would be their acquisition of Alteon for near $8b when they could have had Foundry for less, except they would not make Bobby head of enterprise (where he would be useful) because of some old grudge over the Rapid City vs. Centilion beef internally (last gen of stuff they acquired - Bay Networks timeframe).

cr0sh 8y ago

> I used to work for Nortel and they went the way of the dodo because they were like Nokia (which ended the same way. I worked with them at some point as well...) Admit it - you're the real common link here... /s