You’ve got to love the Canadian work ethic.
The company was nearly in rigor mortis, yet these ex-execs busted their collective asses to try and keep what they knew and loved alive.
Was this a bad example of beating a dead horse, or was this a vain attempt to be more like Mark Twain’s quote “Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated”?
John McFarlane, formerly VP of Technology for broadband technology assembled a rag-tag team of former executives to take drastic measures to prolong the life of Nortel. Joined by Jules Meunier, Robert Pfeffer, David Taylor, and Ian Craig, the fantastic five worked to keep the Canadian company breathing. Lobbying politicians, courting investors, and plotting techniques to not only keep the company alive, but to keep it alive in Canada.
Focusing on the carrier group, McFarlane and his troupe rallied to gain investors in a market that was loathe to invest in anything, especially after already losing cash to the previous Nortel administration. LTE was the great white hope of the future, but it was the company’s failure to keep current with 3G technology that was the fatal wound in the Nortel body.
You can’t say they didn’t try. And they were doing it for the right reasons. Bad timing combined with bad leadership finally brought down the company that had once employed over 100,000 people, while bringing in over $30 billion per year.
Rest in peace Nortel, you will be missed.
But wait – maybe the Nortel heart is still beating…
Written by: Jason Finnerty. www.digitcom.ca. Follow TheTelecomBlog.com by: RSS, Twitter, Identi.ca, or Friendfeed
