Nortel to simplify, expand services offerings

27.03.2006
Nortel Networks Corp. announced Monday that it will simplify its services offerings as well as provide integration of equipment from other vendors, in an effort to spur new revenue from the services it offers to large businesses and service providers.

Even as it streamlines its services, Nortel is also adding new ones, including integration services for IPTV and for voice over IP to help service providers deliver voice, data and video services faster and cheaper.

Nortel is creating a services business unit that will focus on five commercial services areas: integration, security, optimization, maintenance and managed services, Curt Hopkins, vice president of sales and marketing for global services, said in an interview.

'Nortel has provided services for years, but not a separate, intentional strategy and business unit,' he said. 'There will be a sweeping simplification, from 700 down to 70 discreet services.' About one-third of Nortel's 30,000 employees work in services, he said.

Nortel CEO Mike Zafirovski recently said that services would be one of six key areas on which Nortel will focus, noting that services and applications now account for less than 20 percent of the company's revenue. Nortel hopes to double services revenue in the next three to five years, Hopkins said.

Nortel has offered managed services of multivendor networks for a long time but will begin offering maintenance services for other vendors' equipment, giving customers a single point of contact for repairs, Hopkins said. Two North American service providers recently became the first to use the new multivendor maintenance services, Hopkins said. He declined to name the companies involved.