Wednesday March 24, 10:17 pm Eastern Time
Canada's Nortel looks to win Europe contract
TORONTO, March 24 (Reuters) - Canada's Northern Telecom Ltd. (Toronto:NTL.TO - news) (NYSE:NT - news), one of the world's largest data and telecommunications companies, says an already-established European client wants Nortel to take over a contract currently being serviced by a major U.S. rival of Nortel.
Chief Executive John Roth told Reuters in an interview that he had been recently called by the European firm, which wants to replace an unreliable network backbone from a competitor.
''He just made my day,'' Roth cheerfully said.
Roth, lounging in a chair at the company's Brampton, Ontario headquarters, said the client, whom he had never met, called him personally.
''John, I want to you to replace my current vendor for my packet backbone....I've had it. These guys have let me down so many times,'' Roth said the client told him.
Roth did not identify the buyer but the customer was keen on a new product from Nortel's asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) switching portfolio. The product allows high-speed transmission of voice, video and data over networks.
Nortel has about $1 billion of revenues from ATM products, compared with 1998 annual sales of $17.5 billion. But Roth added he would like to push sales in that area, which is growing ''at a good clip'', to $2 billion.
And the European firm is eager to install everything by the time the clock ticks over into 2000. Many companies are ensuring everything is in place for that date, when systems will either correctly read dates as of January 1, 2000, or stall, creating havoc.
Roth quoted the client as saying, ''So what you've got to do, is make sure that you get it up in time such that I'm not exposed to the Y2K (computer bug).''
Roth said the client also wants to switch routers to help the flow of traffic.
''I got an invitation. I think it's Nortel's to lose,'' Roth said.
Nortel, one of Canada's bigger concerns, has undergone a tumultuous year since it announced in January 1998 it was going to focus on merging voice and data over the same pipelines. Until then the company was a key maker of equipment used to carry voices over phone lines. Since then it has acquired a California-based data communications firm for $9.1 billion, launched two rounds of cutbacks and unveiled a change of name.
Analysts also said Nortel will also be watching the outcome of an expansion by U.S. phone company Sprint Corp. (NYSE:FON - news) in the wireless phone sector. Roth declined to comment on that.
Regards
Neil |
