Nortel

De Wikipedia, la enciclopedia libre

Nortel Networks Corporation, antiguamente conocida como Northern Telecom Limited y actualmente (2004) reducido su nombre a simplemente Nortel, es una de las mayores empresas multinacionales proveedoras de equipos de telecomunicaciones, situándose su sede en Canadá.

[editar] Historia

In 1895, Bell Telephone Company of Canada decided to spin off its manufacturing arm to build phones for sale to other companies as well as other devices such as fire alarm boxes and street call boxes for police and fire departments. This company was incorporated as the Northern Electric and Manufacturing Company Limited. In 1900, the new company began manufacturing the first wind-up gramophones that played flat discs. In 1913, the company's headquarters and main factory was built in Montreal. In 1914, the company merged with Imperial Cable to form Northern Electric, co-owned by Bell Canada and the U.S. company Western Electric. By the end of World War I, Northern Electric had become a major distributor of Western Electric appliances across Canada.

In 1922, Northern Electric started manufacturing radios. In 1928, it produced the first talking movie sound system in the British Empire for a theatre in Montreal. In 1949, an antitrust suit in the U.S. forced AT&T/Western Electric to sell its stake in Northern Electric to Bell Canada. Deprived of its Western Electric tie, Northern began developing its own products. In 1953, Northern Electric produced its first television sets using tubes made by RCA.

In 1966, the company's research lab, Bell Northern Research, started looking into the possibilities of fibre optic cable, and in 1969, began work on digitizing telephone communications. Also in 1969, Northern began making inroads into the U.S. market with its switching systems. In 1972, it opened its first factory in the U.S. in Michigan. In 1975, Northern began shipping its first digital switching systems, one of the earliest such systems to be sold.

In 1976, the company name was changed to Northern Telecom Limited, and management announced its intention to concentrate the company's efforts on digital technology.

As Nortel, the streamlined identity it adopted for its 100-year anniversary in 1995, the company set out to dominate the burgeoning global market for public and private networks.

As Nortel Networks, the name that evolved after the 1998 acquisition of Bay Networks, the company re-engineered itself into an Internet communications business, offering complete solutions for multiprotocol, multiservice, global networking.

In the late 1990s, stock market speculators, hoping that Nortel would reap increasingly lucrative profits from the sale of fibre optic network gear, began pushing up the price of the company's shares to unheard-of levels despite the company's repeated failure to turn a profit. Under the leadership of CEO John Roth, sales of optical equipment had been robust in the late 1990s, but the market was soon saturated. When the speculative telecom bubble of the late 1990s reached its pinnacle, Nortel was to become one of the most spectacular casualties.

At its height, Nortel accounted for more than a third of the total valuation of all the companies listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX), Canada's largest. Nortel's market capitalization fell from C$398 billion in September 2000 to less than $5 billion in August 2002. Nortel's stock price plunged from C$124 to $0.47. When Nortel's stock crashed, it took with it a wide swath of Canadian investors and pension funds, and left 60,000 Nortel employees unemployed. CEO John Roth retired under controversy to be succeeded by former CFO Frank Dunn. Despite some initial perceived success in turning the company around, he was fired for cause in 2004 after being accused of financial mismanagement. Bill Owens then took over as the CEO, and was most recently succeeded by Mike S. Zafirovski.

In late 2004, the "Networks" was dropped, and the company is currently known simply as Nortel. As of October 25 2005, the corporation stated its plans to cease operations at its Brampton, Ontario campus, relocating head offices to other locations in the Toronto area. On December 20 2005, Nortel announced the return to Toronto, Ontario, with the new global headquarters to be located at 195 The West Mall.