Nortel Gets Serious About Data Communications
By MATTHEW FRIEDMAN
Nortel's passes at the data market over the years
have seen the vendor pouncing from packets to
frames to cells. Now, it's IP's turn.
Nortel this week launched a new business unit
focused on enterprise data communications,
under which it will group WAN and virtual private
network products, as well as its Micom
Communications and Entrust Technologies
subsidiaries. While the enterprise data networks
division is being spun out of the existing
enterprise networks division, the latter will
continue to offer the company's
computer-telephony integration and call center
products.
"Data begins in the enterprise, and we need
more focus in this space and more breadth in our
products portfolio," said Bill Conner, the
division's new president.
Conner said one of his division's first priorities
will be "filling the gaps" of Nortel's IP product
offerings, with a particular emphasis on campus
switching.
While the company has made runs at data
networking in the past, Conner concedes that
Nortel is hardly synonymous with routing and
high-speed networking in the same way as Cisco
or Bay Networks. However, he's quick to argue
that things will be different this time.
With competition heating up in the WAN space,
Dataquest analyst Craig Johnson said that
Nortel's move has been a long time coming.
"Nortel has been dabbling in the space for quite
a while without making a real commitment," he
said. "Networking companies and traditional
hardware manufacturers are drawing their lines in
the sand. Everyone wants to control this space."
Johnson said the reorganization is just a prelude
to what he expects will be a battle among Nortel,
Lucent and Cisco, as each moves into the
others' core markets. "It's like the Sharks and the
Jets," he said. "They're all basically circling,
looking at each other's turf, so that when the
markets really take off, they can hit the ground
running." |
