Nortel Gives SMBs More Ways for Simplifying Operations, Increasing Productivity, Collaborating Effectively
2006年11月15日 - 10:00PM
PRニュース・ワイアー (英語)
Introduces New SMB Data Solutions, Product Enhancements for
Affordable and Sophisticated Communications TORONTO, Nov. 15
/PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Nortel(x) (NYSE/TSX: NT) is strengthening
its small and medium business (SMB) portfolio with the addition of
two new data products, as well as enhancements to existing SMB
solutions. Nortel's new SMB products and enhancements include:
Business Ethernet Switch 200 and Business Ethernet Switch 50
portfolios, Business Communications Manager 50 Release 2 and
enhancements to the Digital Mobility portfolio. These new offerings
are designed to specifically address the unique business needs of
smaller businesses to boost employee productivity and satisfaction,
streamline business operations and costs, and deliver superior
customer service. From Internet access and wireless connectivity to
converged voice and data solutions, Nortel provides a complete
end-to-end solution for SMB businesses, allowing customers to build
a network that fits their needs today and into the future. Nortel's
new Business Ethernet Switch 200 and Business Ethernet Switch 50
bolster the Company's recently announced SMB portfolio of voice,
data and wireless solutions to bring the power of wireless LAN,
Ethernet switching, security and converged voice and data to
smaller businesses. The Business Ethernet Switch 200 series will be
available in late November and the Business Ethernet Switch 50
series will be available in December 2006. "Because our company
handles a large volume of emergency calls when people are without
heat, we need our communications systems to be reliable and offer
quality and advanced features. We had a Nortel Norstar phone system
for years and knew we'd turn to Nortel when it was time to update
our system," said Gary Bekolay, president of 72 Degrees Heating
& Cooling Solutions, Inc. in Carp, Ontario. "We are now using a
complete Nortel SMB communications solution, including the Business
Ethernet Switch 50, Business Access Point 120 and Business Secure
Router 222, to deliver a superior service experience for our
customers." For nearly 20 years, Nortel has provided voice
communication solutions to more than 15 million SMB employees in
more than 80 countries, and its award-winning BCM50 sold more than
22,000 units globally during its first year of availability. A key
enhancement to Nortel's BCM50 is the addition of Intelligent
Contact Center and Multimedia Contact Center, giving SMBs access to
detailed reporting, real-time statistics and Web presence features
previously only available to large enterprises. Nortel's BCM50
Release 2 and Digital Mobility additions will be available in
December 2006.(+) "The BCM50 is simple to administer and use yet as
powerful as many fully-featured IP PBX's. It is a product that
comes with its own future proofing," said Bill Morgan, managing
partner of W and J PARTNERSHIP, a professional services firm in
Castro Valley, California. "The BCM unified messaging application
alone has already improved the efficiency of our company. In fact,
we believe that by 2007 our savings will equate to the annual
salary of one of our most senior engineers." With the addition of
these new SMB products, Nortel is introducing new SMB specific
sales training and on-demand marketing tools to assist its channel
partners. New tools available to channel partners include an SMB
configuration and pricing tool to assist partners in quoting and
ordering Nortel products, as well as an SMB-specific Marketing on
Demand design tool to help channel partners create co-branded
collateral for events, direct mails and promotional items. As part
of its strategy to strengthen its SMB portfolio, Nortel recently
introduced regional campaigns to address the needs of SMBs and
channel partners. In North America, new and existing resellers have
access to pre-defined, easy-to-sell SMB voice and data packages
that address the distinctive requirements, challenges and budgets
of smaller businesses. In addition, Nortel's IPT 1-2-3 initiative
provides simple, easy to implement options that help enterprises
migrate or upgrade to IP telephony at their own pace and at a more
affordable cost. Nortel also extended its broad channel partner
'Assurance' services portfolio for Europe, Middle East and Africa
with the addition of the SMB Partner Assurance Contract (PAC) and
launched a new momentum marketing campaign focused on "Grow your
Business. Think Small". In India, the recently announced focus on
SMBs will provide customers simple, scalable and easy to use
products at a very affordable price. About Nortel Nortel is a
recognized leader in delivering communications capabilities that
enhance the human experience, ignite and power global commerce, and
secure and protect the world's most critical information. Our
next-generation technologies, for both service providers and
enterprises, span access and core networks, support multimedia and
business-critical applications, and help eliminate today's barriers
to efficiency, speed and performance by simplifying networks and
connecting people with information. Nortel does business in more
than 150 countries. For more information, visit Nortel on the Web
at http://www.nortel.com/. For the latest Nortel news, visit
http://www.nortel.com/news. Certain statements in this press
release may contain words such as "could", "expects", "may",
"anticipates", "believes", "intends", "estimates", "targets",
"envisions", "seeks" and other similar language and are considered
forward-looking statements or information under applicable
securities legislation. These statements are based on Nortel's
current expectations, estimates, forecasts and projections about
the operating environment, economies and markets in which Nortel
operates. These statements are subject to important assumptions,
risks and uncertainties, which are difficult to predict and the
actual outcome may be materially different. Nortel has made various
assumptions in the preparation of its financial outlook in this
press release, including the following company specific
assumptions: no further negative impact to Nortel's results of
operations, financial condition and liquidity arising from Nortel's
restatements of its financial results; Nortel's prices increasing
at or above the rate of price increases for similar products in
geographic regions in which Nortel sells its products; increase in
sales to Nortel's enterprise customers and wireless service
provider customers in the Asia Pacific region as a result of
Nortel's joint venture with LG Electronics Inc.; anticipated growth
in sales to enterprise customers, including the full year impact to
Nortel's revenues from its acquisition of PEC Solutions, Inc., (now
Nortel Government Solutions Incorporated); improvement in Nortel's
product costs due to favorable supplier pricing substantially
offset by higher costs associated with initial customer deployments
in emerging markets; cost reductions resulting from the completion
of Nortel's significant financial restatements and 2004
restructuring plan; a moderate increase in costs over 2005 related
to investments in the finance organization and remedial measures
related to Nortel's material weaknesses in internal controls;
increased employee costs relative to expected cost of living
adjustments and employee bonuses offset by a significant reduction
in executive recruitment and severance costs incurred in 2005; and
the effective execution of Nortel's strategy. Nortel has also made
certain macroeconomic and general industry assumptions in the
preparation of its financial guidance including: a modest growth
rate in the gross domestic product of global economies in the range
of 3.9% which is higher than the growth rate in 2005; global
service provider capital expenditures in 2006 reflecting mid to
high single digit growth as compared to low double digit growth in
2005; a general increase in demand for broadband access, data
traffic and wireless infrastructure and services in emerging
markets with the rate of growth in developed markets beginning to
slow; and a moderate impact as a result of expected industry
consolidation among service providers in various geographic
regions, particularly in North America and EMEA. The above
assumptions, although considered reasonable by Nortel at the date
of this press release, may prove to be inaccurate and consequently
Nortel's actual results could differ materially from its
expectations set out in this press release. Further, actual results
or events could differ materially from those contemplated in
forward-looking statements as a result of the following (i) risks
and uncertainties relating to Nortel's restatements and related
matters including: Nortel's most recent restatement and two
previous restatements of its financial statements and related
events; the negative impact on Nortel and NNL of their most recent
restatement and delay in filing their financial statements and
related periodic reports; legal judgments, fines, penalties or
settlements, or any substantial regulatory fines or other penalties
or sanctions, related to the ongoing regulatory and criminal
investigations of Nortel in the U.S. and Canada; any significant
pending civil litigation actions not encompassed by Nortel's
proposed class action settlement; any substantial cash payment
and/or significant dilution of Nortel's existing equity positions
resulting from the approval of its proposed class action
settlement; any unsuccessful remediation of Nortel's material
weaknesses in internal control over financial reporting resulting
in an inability to report Nortel's results of operations and
financial condition accurately and in a timely manner; the time
required to implement Nortel's remedial measures; Nortel's
inability to access, in its current form, its shelf registration
filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission
(SEC), and Nortel's below investment grade credit rating and any
further adverse effect on its credit rating due to Nortel's
restatements of its financial statements; any adverse affect on
Nortel's business and market price of its publicly traded
securities arising from continuing negative publicity related to
Nortel's restatements; Nortel's potential inability to attract or
retain the personnel necessary to achieve its business objectives;
any breach by Nortel of the continued listing requirements of the
NYSE or TSX causing the NYSE and/or the TSX to commence suspension
or delisting procedures; (ii) risks and uncertainties relating to
Nortel's business including: yearly and quarterly fluctuations of
Nortel's operating results; reduced demand and pricing pressures
for its products due to global economic conditions, significant
competition, competitive pricing practice, cautious capital
spending by customers, increased industry consolidation, rapidly
changing technologies, evolving industry standards, frequent new
product introductions and short product life cycles, and other
trends and industry characteristics affecting the
telecommunications industry; the sufficiency of recently announced
restructuring actions, including the potential for higher actual
costs to be incurred in connection with these restructuring actions
compared to the estimated costs of such actions and the ability to
achieve the targeted cost savings and reductions of Nortel's
unfunded pension liability deficit; any material and adverse
affects on Nortel's performance if its expectations regarding
market demand for particular products prove to be wrong or because
of certain barriers in its efforts to expand internationally; any
reduction in Nortel's operating results and any related volatility
in the market price of its publicly traded securities arising from
any decline in its gross margin, or fluctuations in foreign
currency exchange rates; any negative developments associated with
Nortel's supply contract and contract manufacturing agreements
including as a result of using a sole supplier for key optical
networking solutions components, and any defects or errors in
Nortel's current or planned products; any negative impact to Nortel
of its failure to achieve its business transformation objectives,
including completion of the sale of its UMTS access business to
Alcatel; additional valuation allowances for all or a portion of
its deferred tax assets; Nortel's failure to protect its
intellectual property rights, or any adverse judgments or
settlements arising out of disputes regarding intellectual
property; changes in regulation of the Internet and/or other
aspects of the industry; Nortel's failure to successfully operate
or integrate its strategic acquisitions, or failure to consummate
or succeed with its strategic alliances; any negative effect of
Nortel's failure to evolve adequately its financial and managerial
control and reporting systems and processes, manage and grow its
business, or create an effective risk management strategy; and
(iii) risks and uncertainties relating to Nortel's liquidity,
financing arrangements and capital including: the impact of
Nortel's most recent restatement and two previous restatements of
its financial statements; any inability of Nortel to manage cash
flow fluctuations to fund working capital requirements or achieve
its business objectives in a timely manner or obtain additional
sources of funding; high levels of debt, limitations on Nortel
capitalizing on business opportunities because of support facility
covenants, or on obtaining additional secured debt pursuant to the
provisions of indentures governing certain of Nortel's public debt
issues and the provisions of its support facility; any increase of
restricted cash requirements for Nortel if it is unable to secure
alternative support for obligations arising from certain normal
course business activities, or any inability of Nortel's
subsidiaries to provide it with sufficient funding; any negative
effect to Nortel of the need to make larger defined benefit plans
contributions in the future or exposure to customer credit risks or
inability of customers to fulfill payment obligations under
customer financing arrangements; any negative impact on Nortel's
ability to make future acquisitions, raise capital, issue debt and
retain employees arising from stock price volatility and further
declines in the market price of Nortel's publicly traded
securities, or the planned share consolidation resulting in a lower
total market capitalization or adverse effect on the liquidity of
Nortel's common shares. For additional information with respect to
certain of these and other factors, see Nortel's Annual Report on
Form 10-K/A, Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q and other securities
filings with the SEC. Unless otherwise required by applicable
securities laws, Nortel disclaims any intention or obligation to
update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a
result of new information, future events or otherwise. (x) Nortel,
the Nortel logo and the Globemark are trademarks of Nortel
Networks. Use of the terms "partner" and "partnership" does not
imply a legal partnership between Nortel and any other party. (+)
Scheduled GA date for North America. Actual GA dates outside of
North America vary by region. Please contact your regional
representative for actual GA. DATASOURCE: Nortel CONTACT: Bo Gowan,
(972) 685-8278, ; Ben Roome, +44 1628 433113,
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