Industry Update

Customers, partners, suppliers, peons and Nortel watchers: I know I am a little late getting to this most recent update on the great success story that Nortel continues to be. Fact is, I have been travelling - as I type this I am in Barcelona where I am attending Mobile World Congress, which is some kind of big event related to wireless phones, or so it seems. My Spanish is a little rusty and I am very tired from the journey. I flew commercial, and it's hard. I heard that Nortel was sending a good size team to MWC but it's odd, I didn't see anyone from Nortel in the front cabin on the flight. Maybe they flew a different airline.

Anyway, at an event like this it seems like a good time to address the criticism I sometimes hear (or I should really say that Alepian slides onto my desk, as I don't really hear criticism myself). People say (so Alepian says) that I don't know the telecom industry. Well. I ask you this: Did Rockefeller know the telecom industry? Did J.P. Getty know the telecom industry? Did Bill Gates know the telecom industry? Did Carnegie, the Rothschilds, Queen Elizabeth II, or Imelda Marcos know the telecom industry? Did they? Enough said.

It's also a great time to share the tremendous progress we've made at Nortel, which continues to be ... tremendous. We've come a long way, although there are some questions about in which direction. Here at MWC we're expecting Verizon to confirm they're going with Nortel for their LTE deployment. That's Long Term Enrichment for executives like me. Personally I believe that the fact they're making this announcement so soon, while Nortel is still stabilizing from the bankruptcy and has no business plan, is a great sign for Nortel. It's going to be a tremendous vote of confidence that before they've even seen my plan, Verizon is going to put their confidence in Nortel.

I recorded a video before I flew out here, to give our customers, partners and suppliers the great news about the progress we're making. You should check it out at nortel.com. It's open and transparent. Alepian said he thought it was very transparent, which I see as a really great sign.

I have a few cocktail parties and some tapas to get to, so this will be a short entry. Thanks for reading and being a part of the great story that is Nortel.