Can Nortel be bought yet?

Can Nortel be bought yet?

Many analysts think Nortel missed the train and that it will be hard to find a partner in the carrier market. Talks have been held in the past with Alcatel, Siemens, but none was successful. With a market capitalization of about $9bn, Nortel is an expensive buy. And with a broad portfolio, it is too big to be attractive. Furthermore, its portfolio is not exceptional and it lost most of its positions in the wireline carrier market, and it is weak in mobile systems. The only card to play could be the US presence. LG (a JV is already doing well) or Huawei (a JV failed ) could be interested. That means another jewel of the US crown is going out; I do not see Motorola interested by Nortel (their combined mobile businesses are still too weak). Furthermore, Nortel's current behavior to focus on execution and operational excellence (layoffs, new CTO, flat organization,) can be seen as a way to go it alone.

Nortel can have, however, two other options. One is a buyer comes from outside telecom, but it is hard to believe someone can be interested for financial reasons with Nortel still in turmoil. The second is to focus on markets that would help it thrive as a smaller company, such as VOIP and Enterprise. And Nortel is rumoured to be in talks with Siemens Enterprise and Avaya to form a three-party JV focused on the enterprise voice market. Rise and fall of what was considered in early 2000 as a jewel.