Archive for April, 2005
« Previous EntriesThe Americanization of Nortel
Saturday, April 30th, 2005If you didn't get a chance to read my column in the National Post this week - and still have an appetite for Nortel news - here's some weekend reading material on how the company seems to be less Canadian these days.
Is Nortel Networks Corp. in the midst of being Americanized?
It is a legitimate question [...]
Nortel Files 10-K
Saturday, April 30th, 2005As it promised, Nortel filed its 10-K
by the end of the April with the SEC. But no one gets to see the actual
numbers until early Monday morning. This leaves analysts - and the
media - with just a couple of hours to pore through the document before
an 8 a.m. conference call. Not that I'm an expert [...]
Firefox Hits 50M Downloads
Friday, April 29th, 2005Firefox looks like it's for real if 50 million downloads mean anything. Apparently, the newest alternative browser has 10.3% of the browser market while IE has dropped to 83.1% from 84.8% since the beginning of the year. If I could be so brave to make a suggestion to the Firefox development community, it would [...]
8×8 Thinks $99 is Great
Friday, April 29th, 2005An intriguing exercise is trying to read into 8×8 Inc.'s decision to keep the price of its Packet8 VideoPhone at at $99 following a promotional program. 8×8 said the decision is prompted by “favorable consumer demand” to a plan that is part a $19.95 a month, two-year service contract. The key question is how [...]
Rogers-Primus Technical Issues?
Friday, April 29th, 2005According to Rogers Cable's Michael Lee, there are problems with Primus Canada's VOIP software - which could account for QoS issues. QoS is becoming a bigger issue as VOIP service providers such as Vonage complain their packets being blocked to de-prioritized by broadband network operators. Lee said there are no regulations to stop this kind [...]
Nortel Talks Numbers
Friday, April 29th, 2005While Nortel will file its 2004 fourth-quarter and annual results today with the SEC, analysts will have to wait until 8 a.m. Monday for a conference call with CEO Bill Owens and CFO Peter Currie. It is certainly not the best scenario for analysts who likely have to spend the weekend pouring over financial statments [...]
BT: $19B; Nortel & Marconi $0
Friday, April 29th, 2005BT Group - formerly known as British Telecom - unveiled its eight preferred suppliers for a five-year, US$19-billion contract today for a new high-speed Internet network. It was good news for Cisco, Lucent, Siemens, Huawei, Ericsson, Fujitsu, Ciena and Alcatel. It was bad news, however, for Nortel, which watched Ciena and Huawei win the [...]
Nokia vs. iPod
Thursday, April 28th, 2005Apparently, Nokia thinks it has done the unthinkable by developing the iPod-killer. The mobile device maker will offer a cell phone with a 4GB hard disk that can store 3,000 songs. In theory, it sounds like a great idea, and it would be even better if they also offered a calendar and calendar software and [...]
Today's the Day for Nortel…Actually, No!
Thursday, April 28th, 2005There are rumblings Nortel may release its 2004 fourth-quarter and annual results laster today. Then again, it may wait until after the markets close tomorrow so it can get analysts even more upset. It's puzzling why Nortel insists on setting these kind of internal deadlines. All they do is create expectations that hurt you if [...]
AOL Canada Drops VOIP Prices
Thursday, April 28th, 2005AOL Canada - citing “increasing subscriber demand” - recently dropped the prices of its two VOIP plans. Truth be told, AOL is really responding to market conditions so it can stay competitive with Vonage, Primus, Comwave and BabyTel in the non-facilities based VOIP market. While AOL Canada executives have enthusiastically disagreed with me on their [...]
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