Goodbye Nortel

It’s a sad day for employees and former employees of Nortel. Today, the company announced that it will liquidate and sell its businesses, ending its efforts to restructure in bankruptcy court.

After 114 years in business, it’s a sobering end to a company that once had so much life. At one point, the company was valued by investors at $250 billion, but that was before the dot-com bust and accounting scandals. The company is forced now to liquidate in order to pay its creditors and ex-employees to whom it owes severance and pensions. The first piece of the business to be sold off is its lucrative carrier networks division and a wireless research unit. These are being picked up by Nokia Siemens for a bid of US $650 million.

I spent nearly 15 years working at Nortel, starting in college as a paid intern in the corporate communications group. During my tenure there, I managed customer and community relations, enterprise public relations, and product marketing for contact center solutions, mobility, and unified communications solutions. Nortel offered many outstanding learning opportunities and enabled me to develop valuable skills which helped to advance my professional career long after my departure from the company.

I have many fond memories of my time at Nortel. The good times were amazing. The people were top notch. In fact, I have many life-long friends that I met during my time at Nortel.

Even though I’ve been gone for a few years now, I mourn the loss of a company that was once a bright shining star in the industry — a company that brought much joy and career growth into my life.

Although Nortel will continue to exist until its businesses are sold off, this story is quickly coming to an end…goodbye, my friend. You will be missed.