"If they weren't happy they should have tried to bid early, before Nokia Siemens Networks," said Ronald Gruia, program leader for emerging telecoms at Frost & Sullivan. "If they had bid before NSN they wouldn't have had this problem."

During Friday's hearings, Mike Lake, an Edmonton-area Conservative Member of Parliament, asked Lazaridis if RIM considered legal action against Nortel.

"We did consider it," Lazaridis said, adding he needs to be careful in making his comments. "We haven't finished evaluating all our options to date."

In earlier testimony, a Nortel official said RIM could have bid had they wanted to.

"The standard (non-disclosure agreement) that we had others sign like Ericsson and Nokia Siemens Networks and MatlinPatterson ... was used for RIM," said George Riedel, chief strategy officer.