Who's Afraid of Big, Bad Huawei?
Nortel CEO Bill Owens has been talking about the threat posed by Huawei almost from the time he took the helm a year ago. Here's what he had to say about Huawei during a conference call today with analysts:
“Huawi is a keen competitior…..I think they compete well. We must on our side reduce
costs. We are focused on cost reduction. We will stay [focused on] continuing to cost reduction in all areas of our business. I know Gary Daichendt is focused on it, Peter Currie is focused on it and I am focused on it. We will drive the cost structure of Nortel down….We are adding some jobs in China and India. We have the LG partnership in China and the JV in Korea. We will move R&D jobs into lower cost markets. It helps us reduce our opex as we go into this ever-creasing competive marektplace.”
Huawei, by the way, beat out Nortel for the long-haul optical part of BT's US$19 billion next generation network contract.
