R&D Transformation On Track At Nortel

You might have seen John Roese's blog, in which he, as Nortel CTO, talked to the transformation of R&D in Nortel.

Most visibly, the R&D program has shifted to what we call "20-60-20"- 20% is late-lifecycle spend, 60% is focused on growth and mature product activity, and a full 20% is directed to emerging and new technologies and markets, such as those in application software. An excellent example of the latter is the Nortel Agile Communication Environment, communications integration software.

Some are asking, whether this transformation is still on track given that John is leaving Nortel at the end of the year and given the state of the world economy.

The answer is absolutely yes.

Last week, Phil Edholm, the enterprise CTO, held his first team meeting to drive forward with the enterprise portions of the advanced research and incubation programs, which John initiated.

The incubation program continues to represent some 3% of R&D, and is targeted at opening new addressable markets outside of the existing business units. A good example of an element of our incubation program is web.alive, a highly innovative e-commerce, e-learning and collaboration application.

I am glad to see that R&D continues to be at the heart of innovation in Nortel.