[bratticus]

Tech wreck behind Nortel demise
Rapid overexpansion of network in the late 1990s spurred Nortel's epic fall from grace

Brett Popplewell
Business Reporter
Jan 15, 2009 04:30 AM

In Ottawa's west end, those left in the city's emaciated high-tech industry watched the titan's demise with a mix of intrigue and sadness.

Yesterday, as chief executive Mike Zafirovski tried to reassure the 30,000 bewildered employees still working for Nortel Networks, those within the company and the many who had already left were lamenting the failure of one of Canada's biggest success stories.

With a market capitalization of more than $350 billion (U.S.) nine years ago – more than the combined market values of Microsoft and Google today – few would have predicted Nortel's descent to penny-stock status today. The stock fetched just 12 cents (Canadian) at yesterday's close on the TSX.

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An accounting scandal led to the company's firing of former CEO Frank Dunn and other top executives, costing Nortel $2.4 billion (U.S.) in cash and shares to settle shareholder lawsuits in early 2006.

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[Specop_007]

Guess who spends all day working on Nortel equipment.....

Well to be honest we have a lot of traffic running across them and its making my employer a truckload of money so I'm not too worried, but depending how it goes support may or may not be there.

[crude_intentions]

I'm a network/computer tech as well my boss was talking about Micron Technology. www.crucial.com

They seem to be having a fire sale which was making us wonder.

our vendor MPC http://www.mpccorp.com the company we use to order PCs and Servers has filed for Chapter 11. This has us biting our nails becasue we have at least 2 dozen servers out there that are still suposed to be under Warranty.

[Sixstrings]

With a market capitalization of more than $350 billion (U.S.) nine years ago – more than the combined market values of Microsoft and Google today

That is pretty amazing.

[Kez]

Our vendor MPC http://www.mpccorp.com the company we use to order PCs and Servers has filed for Chapter 11. This has us biting our nails becasue we have at least 2 dozen servers out there that are still suposed to be under Warranty.

The University I work for owns about 750 Gateway computers with 4 year warranties and MPC bought Gateway a year or so ago, so we won't be getting parts, probably ever.

I knew back in the late 90's that Nortel was a badly organized place, they have a huge campus down here in Dallas. In one month they announced the hiring of 5,000 people and the firing of 8,000 or so. Yeah, in the same month. Real smart people.

[Snowrunner]

With a market capitalization of more than $350 billion (U.S.) nine years ago – more than the combined market values of Microsoft and Google today

That is pretty amazing.

The ongoing joke up here in Canada was someone calculating how much you'd have left for the empties if you'd have invested your money in two-fours instead of Nortel Stock.... The Stock lost btw.

Guess: Buy more beer and buy stock on Molson.

Bummer about Nortel though, my last contract had me go to them a few times and the people I met there really were on the ball.... If you look at the history of the company it is a double shame.