The Great White Mess: Nortel staggers to the finish line

Nortel, despite all its woes, is still a really humorous company. In a great ironic move, the fallen Canadian telecom giant, while busy selling and shopping units, has announced new applications to improve contact between enterprises and their customers. Perhaps it can use its own off-site agent, which is says "enables business continuity in the event of an emergency situation like a pandemic or natural disaster," to manage the emergency situation of the low-ball bids it's getting for its most lucrative assets and the bad PR of two of the members of its board getting raises after the company's recent abysmal performance.

Sure, Nortel had some positive news this week with two separate research reports confirming it retained its market leadership in global Carrier VoIP revenues in Q2 2009.

But it's also locked in battles with pension holders in both the U.S. and Canada, while its ex-CEO Frank Dunn is trying to make the company continue to pay his legal bills resulting from his mismanagement.

There's also the issue of the $132 million in legal fees related to its bankruptcy filing it's spent already, and its projection of $265 million in additional expenses on professional fees related to the filing it projects to spend in the next 12 months.

The $1.1 billion it received from the sale of its wireless assets to Ericsson and any proceeds from the sale of its Enterprise Solutions division or Carrier VoIP unit could sit in escrow accounts for years as the company's creditors haggle over its carcass, according to the Ottawa Citizen. And CEO Mike Zafirovski stepped down after the company's dismal Q2 results along with two board members (perhaps they were unhappy they didn't receive a raise?), leaving the company's leadership stretched even thinner.

Phew. Where is the light at the end of the tunnel for Nortel? No one really likes schadenfreude.

Well, it still demonstrates that it has talented people on board who can produce innovative technological solutions, proven by its successful test with LG of the first-ever handoff between LTE and CDMA networks earlier this week. The sale of its remaining units certainly will draw attention, and Avaya's bid for its ES division likely will be topped before the close of the stalking horse auction. Let's hope Nortel gets some recompense for its valuable assets, to add at least a bittersweet, if not entirely melancholy, coda to its storied existence. 

- Pete