Indirect channel partners at Ciena Corp. (CIEN) and Nortel Networks are in a good place now that the two companies have joined forces. More end users, from service providers to enterprises, are counting on their consultants and suppliers to know not just old-school TDM technologies, but also the next-gen IP world. Ciena says it’s perfectly positioned as one of those vendors, now that it’s taken over bankrupt Nortel’s Metro Ethernet Networks (MEN) unit.
Resellers and integrators can count on “a much broader tool kit, and a much bigger organization to do business with,” said Dave Parks, Ciena’s director of product marketing, in an interview on Friday. Besides that, he added, the combination of Ciena and Nortel translates into a “stronger brand.” Parks didn’t have information on any changes in commissions or incentives, however, since Ciena still is unveiling details of the MEN takeover.
On March 19, Ciena closed the $773.8 million acquisition of Nortel’s optical division. Ciena won the assets at a heated auction in late November, squeezing out rival Nokia Siemens Networks for the rights to products, intellectual property and employees. Most industry experts agreed Ciena was the best fit for the Nortel holdings, but many also worried Ciena had taken on too much execution risk amid what one financial analyst called “uneven opex discipline.” Ciena is acknowledging those concerns, without giving them too much weight. The key to this historic deal, the Maryland-based manufacturer says, is that resellers and other indirect partners have a doubled-in-size partner as communications traffic becomes all-IP.
“Ciena is the market leader in core switching and Nortel is the market leader in metro optical and long-haul, so we’ve brought that together,” Parks said. “That’s giving our customers the ability to buy ... integrated capabilities.”
To that point, Ciena has grouped its products and Nortel’s into five categories: packet-optical transport; packet-optical switching; carrier Ethernet service delivery; software; and services. Ciena has not “end-of-lifed anything” as part of the transaction, Parks said, which means the company will continue to support the Nortel equipment that Nortel itself has not discontinued. In fact, Ciena’s main internal concern is R&D, Parks said.
“All we’ve done is prioritized our R&D investments, and if you look at where we prioritized, it makes sense because networks are moving to more higher-capacity, packet-optimized infrastructure,” he said. Ciena wants to provide operators and businesses with fewer devices that handle more bandwidth, Parks explained, “so we’re very focused on things like 100G...and automating the network to enable faster time to market, reduce manual intervention and help take down operational costs.”
Turning Tarnished Nortel Into Ciena Gold
Even as it makes headway on the product side, Ciena continues to work to ease misgivings about its ability to manage a Nortel integration.
First up, perceptions of the tarnished Nortel brand.
