5 - Nortel Networks

Address: #403-405,

North Block, 4th Floor

Manipal Centre,

Dickenson Road,

Bangalore - 560 042

Tel.: 080-5592087-89

Fax: 080-5587024

Nortel's

true potential still remains to be harnessed in India. Joseph

Samuel needs to not only build the team, but also steer the

business in the new emerging environment.

There is also some

confusion whether to focus on the Bay line of business or the

original Nortel voice products. Then the dust kicked off by the

merger took some time to settle down. Things were clearer only

towards the beginning of last fiscal.

While in 1998-99, the

company tried entering the enterprise market through the data

side (Bay side), now it has finally decided to go from its

strength in the voice side. This fact is clearly visible. While

its Layer 3 switches and hubs (primarily from Bay) have fetched

revenues worth Rs 15.75 crore and Rs 3.5 crore respectively, the

data and telephony switches (the Passport range) generated sales

worth Rs 33.12 crore. Accelar range of routing switches

accounted for Rs 12.6 crore. About Rs 18.33 crore came on

account of sale of multiplexers.

Nortel has two major lines

of business that facilitate communication networking: enterprise

solutions and service provider and carrier class solutions. This

is exactly what Lucent and Alcatel are doing to enhance their

strength in data transmission. Cisco does the same in voice.

Nortel, with its range of products and focus, can be a threat to

Cisco in both the enterprise and the carrier scene.

Further, with Nortel preparing to put

forward a wholesome solution in EPABX, LAN, and applications, it

will be a bonus. Its strength lies in providing and integrating

both applications as well as infrastructure. It has

comprehensive solutions for not just LAN and WAN, but also for

call centres, enterprise mobility, multimedia communications,

and telephony environments. To capture the Indian market, the

need of the hour is a stable team and aggressive marketing.