It’s quite clear from the poll (included below) that the vast majority of Nortel customers were originally very content to take a “wait and see” approach to the bankruptcy filing. I created that poll on January 15, 2009. It’s now March 29, 2009 more than 90 days later and I get the impression that a lot of folks are really scratching their heads. I would almost be curious to see how many folks have changed their mind in the last 90+ days.
[poll id=”4″ type=”result”]
There are all sorts of rumors around the street these days… everything from a sale to a complete divestiture of the company and it’s assets. While it appears that it’s still business as usual at Nortel (product is readily available, new software releases are being released, support is still responsive) you have to wonder what’s going on and what the end game might look like.
I’ve personally had Brocade (Foundry), Cisco, HP, and Juniper in to discuss their enterprise product offers around LAN/WAN routing/switching. We have quite a few small and large projects that are literally in limbo and I’m not sure how much more uncertainty we (I) as a customer can withstand. I’m curious to what people think today about Nortel?
[poll id=”5″]
I’m interested in hearing your comments and/or thoughts?
Cheers!
I jumped ship from Nortel a couple years ago while during a ‘network down’ event caused by issues with out Passport 8600 I was told by support that the engineer working on the case ‘would be in later that afternoon, can you please call back?’
Jay,
I have worked in Nortel’s “Emergency Recovery center” since September 2, 2007 (which is roughly two years ago). If you had a “real” E1, you would of had a ER engineer engaged within “minutes”. I find you comment somewhat “insulting”, but I guess that’s the “hate” I deal with on a weekly basis.
-Chris
I don’t mean to be insulting by any means. I’m not sure what else I should have done besides open a case for a ‘network down’ situation involving my core switch. That day, the problem lasted 15 minutes and was resolved by a reboot of my core. The next day the problem occurred again and that was the response I got. Sorry if the truth hurts, but this is why I’m no longer a Nortel shop.
I need to bring some balance here. We have used passport 8600’s for quite sometime and have had a few “network downs”. My experience of support, if the information is relayed correctly, is exactly as Chris has stated.. an engineer engaged in minutes.
One network down and you jump ship??? You must have a good budget or your trolling.
Jay,
If that incident was the only “one”, then I believe it’s a bit of a “knee-jerk” reaction to assume that it’s going to happen again. Meaning the incident wouldn’t be taken care in a expedient manner, based on your “high” expations. Now if this incident was repeating itself, then the “tactful” way would be to escalate via your CSAM or through your 3rd party vendor. In any event, the “knee-jerk” reaction to switching to a different vendor (in your case would probably be Cisco) is a bit much. There are more mature ways to deal with situations like the one you had experienced with Nortel. In retrospect, I believe there were underlying motives to switch to a different vendor, then the one you have described in your diatribe. I can assure you that your case handling would not happen now. Nortel customer service has improved processes that prevent this type of case handling and customer satisfaction has improved tremendously over the past two years.
Good luck with Cisco………………..
-Chris
You are correct about underlying motives. I inherited the Nortel network and came from a Cisco background. I didn’t have much issue with it (in fact I was excited to learn something new) until I was left high and dry in a situation where a 350 bed hospital was completely down (which I was CRYSTAL CLEAR about the severity) and I got the answer I did. Unforgivable.
As for it being a single incident… no, there were several but that happen to be the one with a severity level enough to get management’s attention. The others were cases where product features clearly did not work and we got the run around for weeks trying to get answers. After several of these incidents and the incident that pushed us over the edge I would say that we were tactful by choosing another vendor over litigation based on breach of contract.
I’ll concede that this was 4 years ago and that service may have improved in the last 2, but I’m not willing to risk patient lives to find out.
Good luck with whoever you choose after Nortel goes under…………..
Jay,
Believe me, I’m not asking you to change back to “nortel’ equipment by any stretch of the imagination. You have made it blatantly clear that Cisco “walks on water” and “Nortel, sucks” :) Perhaps you can provide one of the following (Case number, Site ID, company name) in question, so I can review just how the incident was handled. Being that (I know that you are) you are a IT guru and you keep historical archives of Email, that you can look in your following Outlook Email folders :)
Outlook folder’s
—————
Nortel suck’s
Cisco walks on water and Nortel still suck’s
Cisco will screw me “price-wise” after I renew my contract…Oh F$%K
Note: Some of this diatribe is “humor”…please don’t be thinned-skinned :)
Hi Jay & Chris,
Thanks for the comments although they serve little purpose here. I can appreciate that your both passionate about the equipment you use but I’ll ask you to refrain from posting any further unless the discussion is on topic.
The purpose of this blog is to discuss different technologies, solutions and issues.
There are plenty of other venues to debate the Cisco vs Nortel topic.
Thanks!
Michael,
In my opinion, your post “What’s going to happen to Nortel?” did open Pandora’s box :)…I will leave it at that.
Unless you have a lot of money and staff with nothing to do, most organizations can not aford to make the change all at once. So far we have not seen any issues araise from their financial problems. We are betting on the fact that becasue Nortel has a good size market share, someone will step up and take ownership. They may continue the line or phase it out but we will not be left hanging. Of course, I hope they can resolve their problems.
Hi Terry,
I would certainly agree with you… there are very few organizations that are going to forklift their existing infrastructure.
Let me expand upon my current quandaries… [if only so amuse Chris – :) ]
I currently have a large number of projects that are already in progress and others that are in the pipeline. While some are in the budgeting stages others are nearing the procurement stage. How can I budget effectively without knowing which vendor I’ll be using? Without knocking Cisco or bolstering Nortel there is quite a price difference between the two, or at least there was the last time I priced out some equipment. That’s not to mention the other possibilities including Brocade and Juniper. For those projects that are nearing procurement how can I respond to management’s fear of ordering equipment from a vendor that might be dissolved tomorrow? Where will I get support and sparing if that company closes it’s doors. If I even entertain looking at an alternate vendor I’m likely going to go over budget and I’m going to need to retrain my entire staff. That’s not to mention if it’s even technically possible to integrate the two disparate vendors solutions.
While I have no desire to jump from Nortel I need to start gearing up so I’m prepared for any outcome. I need to make sure that I have adequate sparing for equipment that is critical to my operation. I need to understand how a competing vendor might integrate while we spend years migrating from one vendor to another. And ultimately I need to have a pretty good idea who (which vendor) I might run to should the need arise. I need to know the pros and cons of their technical solutions and how I can deliver them to meet my business goals.
The longer the uncertainty hangs over Nortel the more and more pressure organizations are under to make the jump. It’s not because we don’t like Nortel or have issues with their products, it’s the future uncertain of the company’s viability that forces our hand.
Thanks for the comment!
I was in the same position as you Michael but not just on LAN equipment. My project also covered an expansion of IP telephony for 800 users. As you mentioned Nortel can be very competitive on price when compared to some of the other vendors you mention. Added to this I have worked with most equipment over my time in IT and I cant say I am a fan of any particular vendor. Having said that though the Nortel equipment we have has been extremely stable and feature rich. Yes times look bad but that can be said for many many other companies. Nortel is still in business and we have recently taken delivery of many 8300’s, 5520’s, 1140e’s, 1120e’s, CS1000, SRG’s etc etc. The supply was fine, the support was good. Our management took a wider view that many many others firms of our size have new or legacy Nortel equipment and because of the size of this install base we will not be left high and dry. Things may change but things will continue work.
What’s annoying me massively at the moment is the amount of Avaya resellers calling me saying “what are you going to do when the apocalypse happens!!!” I am finding hard to remain polite and say “not interest thanks”
Thanks for the feedback Dave.
I certainly agree with your comment regarding the stability and feature sets.
In a similar situation. We have been a Nortel shop since the pre-Bay Networks merger (Wellfleet/Synoptics). Our facility just added a CS1K about 6 months ago with over 700 IP phones licensed, did an dual 8600 core upgrade and swapped half of our edge equipment (BPS2K/450 combos with 5500’s). Right now I am holding off on our second round of purchases until I find out what is happening.
We have been investigating others including Cisco and have come as close as we ever have to moving to Cisco. The only thing is that when doing a pretty complete evaluation of like equipment, the pricing for Cisco 3750 gear is well over twice the price after it has been heavily (the most Cisco has ever done on an account in our area) discounted (three times the price prior to discounts). That doesn’t even begin to look at the difference in support and maintenance. On top of that, the features and performance of the 5500 series runs circles around the 3750 gear. Very disappointing. It was funny…when I asked our vendor (sales both manufacturers) to price a 5520 versus a comparable 3750, they could not believe the price difference. They stated they had never really looked at them side-by-side. After I pointed out some of the differences, they agreed that a company would have a hard time explaining choosing a Cisco solution when all factors were considered (outside the current company situation).
I really hope we get some news on the Enterprise front soon…
Hi Lyn,
Thanks for the feedback! I’m happy to hear I’m not the only person eager to hear something positive.
I’m actually in the final phases of deploying a very large amount of Nortel data and voice equipment… in all we’re installing about 76 ERS5520s, 2 ERS8600s and 400 i2002/i2004 IP phones. I’ve been doing VoIP for quite some time but this will be my largest single site deployment of IP phones, my previous record was around 150 IP phones.
Cheers!
We just purchased several hundred thousand dollars worth of Nortel Enterprise Data gear. We’re also upgrading a Option 81 as well. I don’t understand you guys holding off projects because you’re not sure about Nortel.
Since 5.0.1.0 looks good what makes you think you won’t get a few years of service even if the worst case occurs? You’re doing more damage to your company by sitting on the fence with projects. Buy the gear. Get the projects moving forward.
I would agree with you Neil… unfortunately sometimes these things can be politically charged or you can sometimes fall into a analysis paralysis.
I’ve seen both situations occur over the years and neither is very healthy to any organization.
Thanks for the comment!
We all agree that we get the most function we need per dollar with Nortel Data gear. It’s the best value for our companies. If you want to keep that advantage. Push these projects forward. Sales is what will make the company viable.
We also know the problems with sitting on the fence. We have applications that don’t get deployed. Services that cannot be rendered. In our environment (mostly hospitals) this means not getting clinical applications deployed which increases risk to patients and keeps the cost curve going in the wrong direction.
If this go bad, start switching the gear out in a couple of years. But for now, let those PO’s roll and get those people working!!!
I have been engineering networks for 20 years, with 3Com, Cisco, Bay, Synoptics etc… We have over 2000 Nortel(BayNetworks) Routers / Switches deployed now; I don’t think it matters if the logo on the box is Bay Networks(accellar); Nortel Networks(Passport); Nortel(ERS); or if in the future the box has Siemens(???) stamped on it. This equipment has been better than Cisco for a long time, and gets better every year. It is cheaper than Cisco, and uses less electricity than Cisco, has more features than Cisco. Low Capital expense; Low operating expenses, and great features, and I don’t have security vunerabilities that I am patching every week, like my Cisco equipment. I plan to continue removing the small amount of Cisco equipment until all of it is replaced with Nortel or what ever it is called in the future.
Great post and well said.
Respect 4 u
What a waste of fantastic talent. Nortel bought Bay Networks (SynOptics and WellFleet) and lost the brand identity. I worked in networks for 30 years and I still yearn for the days where someone like SynOptics and WellFleet could take on the Cisco mafia. Ever been to a Cisco sales meeting? Worst experience of my life. The beleive they ARE god.
To qoute them. The war is over,we have won.
Sad.