As part of the changes, Nortel is creating a single business unit that will focus on services in five areas: systems and network integration, security, network optimization, maintenance and managed services.
The Brampton, Ontario-based vendor "has provided services for years, but not [under] a separate, intentional strategy and business unit," said Curt Hopkins, Nortel's vice president of sales and marketing for global services.
Likewise, the company previously offered to manage multivendor networks through its operations centers. But now it will also handle repairs and spare-parts management for non-Nortel equipment, Hopkins said. He added that about half of the network components installed at a typical Nortel customer site are supplied by other vendors.
John Tichenor, chapter representative for the New York City Nortel Users Group, said the new services direction might help Nortel to be seen as comparable to Cisco Systems Inc., which often is credited by users for its strong services orientation. Tichenor is telecommunications manager at a law firm in Manhattan that uses both Nortel and Cisco gear. He asked that his employer not be identified.
Tichenor applauded Nortel's decision to start repairing networking devices from other vendors but said he isn't sure he would count on Nortel to fix his Cisco equipment. "It all depends on what level of repair [is required]," he said. "If you're simply swapping out a Cisco router, fine. But if it was a Cisco backbone switch with [throughput] fluctuations, I wouldn't want Nortel to handle that."
George Ahlenius, president of the Chicagoland Nortel Networks Users Association, isn't a big fan of Nortel's support operations. Ahlenius uses a Nortel voice switch and the company's CallPilot voice-mail system at the Illinois College of Optometry in Chicago, where he works as telecommunications administrator. But he said he isn't satisfied with the level of support that the school gets from Nortel.
For example, the college currently has three unresolved trouble tickets logged with Nortel in connection with its voice-mail system, Ahlenius said. The school relies primarily on AT&T Inc. for basic network maintenance, he said, noting that the time it typically takes to get a response from Nortel's support staff "is more than we can afford in our business operations."
Zeus Kerravala, an analyst at Yankee Group Research Inc. in Boston, said that Nortel and other vendors trying to compete with Cisco can't avoid supporting and maintaining equipment that isn't their own.
"If you're not Cisco, you need to be willing to service multivendor environments," Kerravala said.
Hopkins said Nortel's new strategy includes "a sweeping simplification" of its services portfolio, which is being streamlined from 700 separate offerings to about 70. The company hopes to double its services revenue over the next three to five years, he added.