In what looks like an aggressive timetable, Nortel will work to be out of Chapter 11 bankruptcy by the middle of this year, according to an interview that CEO Mike Zafirovski gave to the Financial Times.According to the report, Nortel plans to present its reorg plan to stakeholders next month:
The Nortel chief executive said he hoped to put the business reorganisation plan before stakeholders, including creditors, next month and to complete the process "by the end of April or May". That would clear the way for Nortel to seek the courts' approval to emerge from bankruptcy protection.
The article cites LTE cellular technology as one that seems promising for Nortel going forward, and there have been recent reports suggesting that in the Carrier Ethernet space, Nortel may be narrowing its technology focus.
In contrast, there have been very few leaks about the fate of the enterprise voice business. Nortel enjoys a strong technology position in enterprise voice, and would still have to be considered to be on the second vendor tier with Avaya, though both clearly trail market leader Cisco, as Allan Sulkin's latest market report shows.
On the other hand, the enterprise voice market is on a downward trend right now; Sulkin estimates that 2008 line station shipments fell almost 6% versus 2007 numbers, and Nortel's own recently-release 4Q08 figures show a 34% revenue decline from 4Q07. And that report doesn't take into account any erosion that might have taken place in January and February 2009, during which period Nortel entered Chapter 11 and the overall economy likely declined further.
In short, as Nortel was heading into bankruptcy late last year and the first half of this January, enterprise voice looked like a market they'd probably want to stay in. Now, it seems to me that this looks at least a little bit less certain.
