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John McHugh, who runs Nortel's Enterprise Data business apparently wants to bring back Bay Networks, not just as a brand, but as a stand-alone business (stand-alone, as opposed to one part of an larger VoIP, UC or Application business).

He claims that his business is a corporate "afterthought", and has been obscured by Nortel's push into UC, though Nortel has done some creative marketing with respect to energy efficiencies of both its Data and UC portfolios.

The ultimate criteria will be decided by whether splitting Nortel Enterprise in two will bring in more money or not.

This will depend in turn on the value that any prospective buyer puts on Nortel Data business. Does Siemens Enterprise Networking or Avaya understand the data market? It's safe to say "probably less than Nortel".

To maximize its value, Nortel will likely need to find a Data buyer.

The Nortel User Association held its annual conference, Global Connect, in Pittsburgh earlier this month, just before the 7th and final game for the Stanley Cup between the Pittsburgh Penguins and Detroit Red Wings in Detroit

Henry Dewing of Forrester Research provided a well-balanced view on this event on his blog.

Henry observed that "customers wanted to compare them (Nortel) to the Pittsburgh Penguins wondering whether they could pull off one more win to take the Cup."

Ánd they did!

I attended a Canadian Parliamentary Finance Committee yesterday at which Mike Zafirovski, the CEO of Nortel, defended bonuses for execs, and Nortel Pensioners presented their case. One headline read "Zafirovski faces MPs, angry Nortel pensioners".

You can read Zafirovski's opening remarks yourself.

The stated perception from Nortel Pensioners was that all of Nortel will be sold off. Mike Zafirovski didn't correct this perception.

Nortel therefore appears to have abandoned the option of taking parts of Nortel out of creditor protection as many companies have done (e.g. Air Canada); preferring to sell off Nortel to other companies (e.g. SEN) or to private investors.

The Pensioner concerns with the options being pursued by Nortel were that the pension fund would be converted to annuities (at currently very low rates), and be put low on the list of creditors. Hence, they were pushing to make pensions a high priority creditorthrough legislative action (as has been done in other countries) and to keep the pension fund solvent with its investments in equities and bonds.

What form Nortel takes going forward is perhaps less of a concern to customers, who want solid solutions from a company with a vision and strong future.

The CEO of Siemens Enterprise Networks has left Siemens. The new interim CEO is from Gores Group, the private equity firm that owns SEN..

No reason has been given, but could it be due to a disagreement on details associated with potentially acquiring Nortel's enterprise business?

And if that happened, would this open the door for Joel Hackney, Nortel Enterprise's current President, to head the combined business?

I have already suggested this might be an interesting marriage.

Five months have passed without a word from Nortel.

Maybe Nortel is waiting the full nine months to announce who the father will be for its Enterprise business? I hope not.

Who would have predicted a year ago that GM would be in Chapter 11? Nothing is forever.

Cisco too will fall... someday.

What might bring it to this state?

Users might revolt against paying premium prices for locked-in solutions. This scenario is more likely to be driven by economic realities than any altruistic sentiment.

Cisco's dominance in Switching and Routers may suffer from commoditization and low cost suppliers. Just look at HP's and Huawei's growth.

Software may win out over hardware. This one is most intriguing to me, as Cisco is increasingly butting heads with IBM and Microsoft.

This is not being alarmist (Cisco's financial position is sound today), but a reminder that adaptive corporate strategies have to win out over corporate greed.

Let the debate go on.

Both GM and Nortel are in Chapter 11, but what else can we observe.

Firstly, GM has many manufacturing facilities and ecosystem suppliers in North America; Nortel out-sourced manufacturing years ago.This has attracted political action on behalf of GM.

Secondly, both have been spread too thin, in terms of brands for GM and products for Nortel. This has contributed to lower competitiveness.

Thirdly, Nortel has been, in general, better aligned with customer needs. This customer focus is a plus for Nortel, while changing the Detroit culture is a major challenge for GM.

Finally, in both cases, company executives have their hands full and are not in full control of their destiny.

The "consumer effect' is hitting the enterprise.

This is happening in multiple ways and goes well beyond reaching out to consumer customers through the devices and applications they use, or accepting the iPhone as an enterprise mobility tool..

For example, music players such as iPods (and features of cell phones) are becoming important employee educational and communications tools. Netbooks are becoming business tools squeezing in on laptops. Social networking which had its beginnings in the consumer space are likewise entering the enterprise space, and are increasingly being viewed as part of the UC space. What's interesting is that in many cases, employees want to the use these capabilities for both business and personal use.

Bottom-line: IT needs to understand that the personal and business identities of employees are blurring and that it must accept the inevitability of the consumer effect, and address security and other policy issues associated with it.

Opportunity knocks to lower costs, and increase employee effectiveness.

Siemens Enterprise Networking (SEN) admits it's thinking about acquiring Nortel's Enterprise business.

No surprise, as the rumors to this effect have been rampant.

Three things make this an interesting option.

Firstly, Nortel and SEN very much have complementary installed bases, with Nortel particularly strong in North America. Consolidation would result in a stronger, more viable, player.

Secondly, combining SEN's Enterasys data unit with that of Nortel would finally result in a clear #2 to Cisco in the switching space.

Thirdly, both companies have a technology strategy targeting communications as an application.

But SEN is not the only one seeing the value of Nortel Enterprise: its customer base, and its UC, applications and data technologies. Avaya has been mentioned, as have private equity firms.

Let's watch as this story unfolds.

Nortel just published its 1Q09 results, and, in my mind, held its own in the highly competitive enterprise market. Why do I say this given that its enterprise revenues dropped some 40%? Consider: 1. Cisco revenues went down 20% in the quarter, so that's the new benchmark in these hard economic times. 2. New customers are generally not going to go with Nortel given it's in creditor protection, though there are some noted exceptions such as the M Resort, Las Vegas' latest resort. Applying the 80/20 rule, there goes 20% right there. 3. Existing Nortel customers are investing in Nortel; though, like Cisco and Avaya customers, are slowing down major new initiatives. Meanwhile, product innovation continues: it just launched its new Ethernet Routing Switch 5600 and Release 6 of its flagship CS 1000 IP/hybrid PBX, and its recently announced BCM 450 reached 1,000 units sold in February ( the fastest-selling Nortel product ever). In fact, Nortel has once again gained recognition by Frost & Sullivan as Enterprise Telephony Vendor of the Year in the 2009. But time is running out. Nortel needs to finalize its over-due business plans so that enterprise customers can confidently invest in Nortel solutions going forward.

You can't live without it but, boy, maintaining your inbox takes up way too much time!

Why.
The sheer numbers of emails in most corporate inboxes is a major culprit, and these days, spam is less the issue as spam filters are getting pretty good.

So what's the answer, since making a 25-hour day is not a practical option?

I see three elements.
1) email etiquette: Businesses need to recognize that email etiquette is at the source of the problem. Overuse of REPLY ALL, and CC are two major culprits. But old habits die hard and changing personal behaviour is a real challenge. UC Cellular took the relatively drastic step of declaring 'email-free Fridays' to make the point. But this will fail until better email etiquette ('netiquette') is established. Not that complicated! Here's 10 steps from Microsoft on the subject. After all it's a win-win for employees (except for those who self define their daily jobs and related job satisfaction as reading and/or responding and/or forwarding every email!).

2) Training. Like any tool, email can be used for business advantage or misused with potentially significant productivity impacts. My favorite is related to emails associated with meetings. I don't know about you, but my calendar is king. I personally am never sure how to change one instance of a recurring meeting without messing up the works! Getting this wrong in the past has resulted in considerable grief. These should be an option to 'revert to old calendar if i mess up', a rough analog to voice conference calling when I say "if I get this wrong, call me back'.

3) Stop the email chain: Not unrelated to the above is the notion of stopping a string of emails on a particular subject and adopting a more appropriate media to close on the subject at hand. For example, launch an IM and then call him/or her. You can do this 'out-of-band' but looking up a name or 'in-band' by simply clicking on it. This is one element of Unified Communications, which makes escalating from email to IM to voice to conferencing a click-away, and the reason for telecom vendors to team with email vendors, as Nortel has done with Microsoft and IBM. UC also includes Unified Messaging which can include listening to your email or reading your voicemail to make itr easier for you. If you think about it, social networking has likewise been invented to solve the inefficiencies of email.

So stop complaining about email overload, lead by example and tell IT what you need.