"To the average end user, none of the discontinuances will be terribly major," said David Dooley, treasurer of the 6,000-member International Nortel Networks User Association (INNUA) in Chicago. "I can assure you that if they were major products that people are clamoring for, they wouldn't be discontinuing them."

Dooley did not have details about which products have been discontinued, although a spokeswoman for Brampton, Ontario-based Nortel said one of the six, the Multiservice Provider Edge router for the service provider market, will no longer be sold as a stand-alone product. Neither the spokeswoman nor Zafirovski would name any of the others.

Zafirovski's comments came during a wide-ranging discussion of changes he's implemented in his first six months as CEO, after the company survived two years of financial restatements and investor class action lawsuits that will cost it US$2.5 billion.

Dooley and Victor Bohnert, executive director of INNUA, said they want more information about the affected products and Nortel's direction from Zafirovski when he meets INNUA members at their annual conference in San Diego on June 11.

"It's not like Zafirovski keeps a secret. He's been speaking quite often to customers," Dooley said. "In June, I want to hear a reaffirmation from him that the end users who have been longtime Nortel customers are important to Nortel ... and I fully expect he'll say that."