Two factors are freezing Nortel enterprise customers from extending their business with the company, the Chapter 11 bankruptcy and the bad economy that has them delaying spending decisions. “A fair number of my normal customers have the economy or questions about the direction of our business that they’re waiting on.”

Meanwhile he is hoping customers will hang on until the Nortel bankruptcy is completed, which seems likely to result in its various business units being spit up and sold separately to the highest bidder.

“This is kind of like chemotherapy; this is the cure not the disease,” McHugh says. “It’s not going to be pleasant, and it’s nothing to happen in a way that anybody’s going to say I’d like to go through that again.” But he hopes the bankruptcy this year will leave his unit focused and agile.

He says Nortel enterprise gear could stand out from competitors because of its custom chips that reduce idle-state power consumption and that it will take competitors three years to develop. It also stands out because of its ability to run parallel trunks with sub-second failover.

The company has plans to upgrade its switches and routers with provider link state bridging (PLSB) Ethernet-forwarding technology from its carrier equipment , McHugh says.