33 Facts About Nortel

Nortel Networks Corporation, formerly Northern Telecom Limited, was a Canadian multinational telecommunications and data networking equipment manufacturer headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

At its height, Nortel accounted for more than a third of the total valuation of all companies listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange, employing 94,500 people worldwide.

Nortel later refined its design at Brantford after producing his first working prototype in Boston.

In 1999, Nortel outsourced several of its manufacturing operations to North American contractors.

Nortel's revenues would be dented by a saturated market and the failure of WorldCom, which was a major customer.

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At its height, Nortel accounted for more than a third of the total valuation of all the companies listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange, employing 94,500 worldwide, with 25,900 in Canada alone.

When Nortel's stock crashed, it took with it a wide swath of Canadian investors and pension funds and left 60,000 Nortel employees unemployed.

Nortel's planned successor and chief operating officer, Clarence Chandran, already on sick leave due to complications following his 1997 stabbing in Singapore, decided to quit, however.

Frank Dunn presided over a dramatic restructuring of Nortel, which included laying off two-thirds of its workforce and writedowns of nearly US$16 billion in 2001 alone.

In late October 2003, Nortel announced that it intended to restate approximately $900 million of liabilities carried on its previously reported balance sheet as of June 30,2003, following a comprehensive internal review of these liabilities.

Nortel stated that the restatement's principal effects would be a reduction in previously reported net losses for 2000,2001, and 2002 and an increase in shareholders' equity and net assets previously reported on its balance sheet.

Nortel acquired PEC Solutions, a provider of information technology and telecommunications services to various government agencies and departments, in June 2005 and renamed it Nortel Government Solutions Incorporated.

In 2004 Nortel discovered that hackers they believed to be in China had free rein within the Nortel network for more than a decade before their collapse.

Nortel paid out US$575 million and 629 million common shares in 2006 to settle a class-action lawsuit that accused the company of misleading investors about the company's health.

In February 2007, Nortel announced its plans to reduce its workforce by 2,000 employees, and to transfer an additional 1,000 jobs to lower-cost job sites.

The Securities and Exchange Commission filed civil fraud charges against Nortel for accounting fraud from 2000 to 2003; the fraud was allegedly to close gaps between its true performance, its internal targets and Wall Street expectations.

Nortel settled the case, paying $35 million, which the Commission distributed to affected shareholders, and reported periodically to the commission on remedial measures to improve its financial accounting.

Nortel announced plans in February 2008 to eliminate 2,100 jobs, and to transfer another 1,000 jobs to lower-cost centres.

On January 14,2009, Nortel filed for protection from creditors, in the United States under Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code, in Canada under the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act, and in the United Kingdom under the Insolvency Act 1986.

Nortel was the first major technology company to seek bankruptcy protection in this global downturn.

Nortel had an interest payment of $107 million due the next day, approximately 4.

Nortel initially hoped to re-emerge from bankruptcy, implementing a retention bonus plan in an effort to retain its top executives during the restructuring period.

Nortel had acquired the application switch product line in October 2000 when it purchased Alteon WebSystems.

GENBAND purchased the Carrier VoIP and Application Solutions unit in May 2010, as Nortel accepted its stalking horse bid of $282 million, with adjustments that decreased the net sale price to about $100 million, without a formal bidding process.

Ericsson purchased Nortel's final operating unit, the Multi-Service Switch division, in September 2010 for US$65 million.

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In 2012, The Wall Street Journal reported that in 2004, Nortel discovered that crackers gained almost-complete access to Nortel's systems.

Hackers working from Chinese IP addresses had allegedly used seven passwords of Nortel executives, including a former CEO, to penetrate networks owned by the company.

Brian Shields, a former senior systems security advisor for Nortel, led an internal investigation into the breach and exposed rootkit software on at least two machines in 2009 that allowed hackers to control them remotely and monitor email.

Nortel refused to comment on The Wall Street Journal report, but former CEO Mike Zafirovski, in charge between 2005 and 2009, claimed the company "did not believe it was a real issue".

The HWT was an unregistered trust maintained by Nortel to provide medical, dental, life insurance, long-term disability and survivor income and pension transition benefits.

In 2001 Nortel identified knockoff products circulating in the Chinese market, in which they did not compete.

Nortel had a significant presence in Europe, Middle East, Africa, the Caribbean, and Latin America.

In February 2008, Nortel employed approximately 32,550 people worldwide, including 6,800 employees in Canada and 11,900 in the United States.