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Nortel Gives SMBs More Ways for Simplifying Operations, Increasing Productivity, Collaborating Effectively


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Introduces New SMB Data Solutions, Product Enhancements for Affordable and Sophisticated Communications

NOVEMBER 15, 2006 - TORONTO - Nortel is strengthening its small and medium business (SMB) portfolio with the addition of two new data products, as well as enhancements to existing SMB solutions.

Nortel’s new SMB products and enhancements include: Business Ethernet Switch 200 and Business Ethernet Switch 50 portfolios, Business Communications Manager 50 Release 2 and enhancements to the Digital Mobility portfolio. These new offerings are designed to specifically address the unique business needs of smaller businesses to boost employee productivity and satisfaction, streamline business operations and costs, and deliver superior customer service.
From Internet access and wireless connectivity to converged voice and data solutions, Nortel provides a complete end-to-end solution for SMB businesses, allowing customers to build a network that fits their needs today and into the future. Nortel’s new Business Ethernet Switch 200 and Business Ethernet Switch 50 bolster the Company’s recently announced SMB portfolio of voice, data and wireless solutions to bring the power of wireless LAN, Ethernet switching, security and converged voice and data to smaller businesses. The Business Ethernet Switch 200 series will be available in late November and the Business Ethernet Switch 50 series will be available in December 2006.

“Because our company handles a large volume of emergency calls when people are without heat, we need our communications systems to be reliable and offer quality and advanced features. We had a Nortel Norstar phone system for years and knew we’d turn to Nortel when it was time to update our system,” said Gary Bekolay, president of 72 Degrees Heating & Cooling Solutions, Inc. in Carp, Ontario. “We are now using a complete Nortel SMB communications solution, including the Business Ethernet Switch 50, Business Access Point 120 and Business Secure Router 222, to deliver a superior service experience for our customers.”

For nearly 20 years, Nortel has provided voice communication solutions to more than 15 million SMB employees in more than 80 countries, and its award-winning BCM50 sold more than 22,000 units globally during its first year of availability. A key enhancement to Nortel’s BCM50 is the addition of Intelligent Contact Center and Multimedia Contact Center, giving SMBs access to detailed reporting, real-time statistics and Web presence features previously only available to large enterprises. Nortel’s BCM50 Release 2 and Digital Mobility additions will be available in December 2006.†

“The BCM50 is simple to administer and use yet as powerful as many fully-featured IP PBX’s. It is a product that comes with its own future proofing,” said Bill Morgan, managing partner of W and J PARTNERSHIP, a professional services firm in Castro Valley, California. “The BCM unified messaging application alone has already improved the efficiency of our company. In fact, we believe that by 2007 our savings will equate to the annual salary of one of our most senior engineers.”

With the addition of these new SMB products, Nortel is introducing new SMB specific sales training and on-demand marketing tools to assist its channel partners. New tools available to channel partners include an SMB configuration and pricing tool to assist partners in quoting and ordering Nortel products, as well as an SMB-specific Marketing on Demand design tool to help channel partners create co-branded collateral for events, direct mails and promotional items.
As part of its strategy to strengthen its SMB portfolio, Nortel recently introduced regional campaigns to address the needs of SMBs and channel partners. In North America, new and existing resellers have access to pre-defined, easy-to-sell SMB voice and data packages that address the distinctive requirements, challenges and budgets of smaller businesses. In addition, Nortel’s IPT 1-2-3 initiative provides simple, easy to implement options that help enterprises migrate or upgrade to IP telephony at their own pace and at a more affordable cost.

Nortel also extended its broad channel partner ’Assurance’ services portfolio for Europe, Middle East and Africa with the addition of the SMB Partner Assurance Contract (PAC) and launched a new momentum marketing campaign focused on “Grow your Business. Think Small”. In India, the recently announced focus on SMBs will provide customers simple, scalable and easy to use products at a very affordable price.

About Nortel

Nortel is a recognized leader in delivering communications capabilities that enhance the human experience, ignite and power global commerce, and secure and protect the world’s most critical information. Our next-generation technologies, for both service providers and enterprises, span access and core networks, support multimedia and business-critical applications, and help eliminate today’s barriers to efficiency, speed and performance by simplifying networks and connecting people with information. Nortel does business in more than 150 countries. For more information, visit Nortel on the Web at www.nortel.com. For the latest Nortel news, visit www.nortel.com/news.

Certain statements in this press release may contain words such as “could”, “expects”, “may”, “anticipates”, “believes”, “intends”, “estimates”, “targets”, “envisions”, “seeks” and other similar language and are considered forward-looking statements or information under applicable securities legislation. These statements are based on Nortel’s current expectations, estimates, forecasts and projections about the operating environment, economies and markets in which Nortel operates. These statements are subject to important assumptions, risks and uncertainties, which are difficult to predict and the actual outcome may be materially different. Nortel has made various assumptions in the preparation of its financial outlook in this press release, including the following company specific assumptions: no further negative impact to Nortel’s results of operations, financial condition and liquidity arising from Nortel’s restatements of its financial results; Nortel’s prices increasing at or above the rate of price increases for similar products in geographic regions in which Nortel sells its products; increase in sales to Nortel’s enterprise customers and wireless service provider customers in the Asia Pacific region as a result of Nortel’s joint venture with LG Electronics Inc.; anticipated growth in sales to enterprise customers, including the full year impact to Nortel’s revenues from its acquisition of PEC Solutions, Inc., (now Nortel Government Solutions Incorporated); improvement in Nortel’s product costs due to favorable supplier pricing substantially offset by higher costs associated with initial customer deployments in emerging markets; cost reductions resulting from the completion of Nortel’s significant financial restatements and 2004 restructuring plan; a moderate increase in costs over 2005 related to investments in the finance organization and remedial measures related to Nortel’s material weaknesses in internal controls; increased employee costs relative to expected cost of living adjustments and employee bonuses offset by a significant reduction in executive recruitment and severance costs incurred in 2005; and the effective execution of Nortel’s strategy. Nortel has also made certain macroeconomic and general industry assumptions in the preparation of its financial guidance including: a modest growth rate in the gross domestic product of global economies in the range of 3.9% which is higher than the growth rate in 2005; global service provider capital expenditures in 2006 reflecting mid to high single digit growth as compared to low double digit growth in 2005; a general increase in demand for broadband access, data traffic and wireless infrastructure and services in emerging markets with the rate of growth in developed markets beginning to slow; and a moderate impact as a result of expected industry consolidation among service providers in various geographic regions, particularly in North America and EMEA. The above assumptions, although considered reasonable by Nortel at the date of this press release, may prove to be inaccurate and consequently Nortel’s actual results could differ materially from its expectations set out in this press release.

Further, actual results or events could differ materially from those contemplated in forward-looking statements as a result of the following (i) risks and uncertainties relating to Nortel’s restatements and related matters including: Nortel’s most recent restatement and two previous restatements of its financial statements and related events; the negative impact on Nortel and NNL of their most recent restatement and delay in filing their financial statements and related periodic reports; legal judgments, fines, penalties or settlements, or any substantial regulatory fines or other penalties or sanctions, related to the ongoing regulatory and criminal investigations of Nortel in the U.S. and Canada; any significant pending civil litigation actions not encompassed by Nortel’s proposed class action settlement; any substantial cash payment and/or significant dilution of Nortel’s existing equity positions resulting from the approval of its proposed class action settlement; any unsuccessful remediation of Nortel’s material weaknesses in internal control over financial reporting resulting in an inability to report Nortel’s results of operations and financial condition accurately and in a timely manner; the time required to implement Nortel’s remedial measures; Nortel’s inability to access, in its current form, its shelf registration filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and Nortel’s below investment grade credit rating and any further adverse effect on its credit rating due to Nortel’s restatements of its financial statements; any adverse affect on Nortel’s business and market price of its publicly traded securities arising from continuing negative publicity related to Nortel’s restatements; Nortel’s potential inability to attract or retain the personnel necessary to achieve its business objectives; any breach by Nortel of the continued listing requirements of the NYSE or TSX causing the NYSE and/or the TSX to commence suspension or delisting procedures; (ii) risks and uncertainties relating to Nortel’s business including: yearly and quarterly fluctuations of Nortel’s operating results; reduced demand and pricing pressures for its products due to global economic conditions, significant competition, competitive pricing practice, cautious capital spending by customers, increased industry consolidation, rapidly changing technologies, evolving industry standards, frequent new product introductions and short product life cycles, and other trends and industry characteristics affecting the telecommunications industry; the sufficiency of recently announced restructuring actions, including the potential for higher actual costs to be incurred in connection with these restructuring actions compared to the estimated costs of such actions and the ability to achieve the targeted cost savings and reductions of Nortel’s unfunded pension liability deficit; any material and adverse affects on Nortel’s performance if its expectations regarding market demand for particular products prove to be wrong or because of certain barriers in its efforts to expand internationally; any reduction in Nortel’s operating results and any related volatility in the market price of its publicly traded securities arising from any decline in its gross margin, or fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates; any negative developments associated with Nortel’s supply contract and contract manufacturing agreements including as a result of using a sole supplier for key optical networking solutions components, and any defects or errors in Nortel’s current or planned products; any negative impact to Nortel of its failure to achieve its business transformation objectives, including completion of the sale of its UMTS access business to Alcatel; additional valuation allowances for all or a portion of its deferred tax assets; Nortel’s failure to protect its intellectual property rights, or any adverse judgments or settlements arising out of disputes regarding intellectual property; changes in regulation of the Internet and/or other aspects of the industry; Nortel’s failure to successfully operate or integrate its strategic acquisitions, or failure to consummate or succeed with its strategic alliances; any negative effect of Nortel’s failure to evolve adequately its financial and managerial control and reporting systems and processes, manage and grow its business, or create an effective risk management strategy; and (iii) risks and uncertainties relating to Nortel’s liquidity, financing arrangements and capital including: the impact of Nortel’s most recent restatement and two previous restatements of its financial statements; any inability of Nortel to manage cash flow fluctuations to fund working capital requirements or achieve its business objectives in a timely manner or obtain additional sources of funding; high levels of debt, limitations on Nortel capitalizing on business opportunities because of support facility covenants, or on obtaining additional secured debt pursuant to the provisions of indentures governing certain of Nortel’s public debt issues and the provisions of its support facility; any increase of restricted cash requirements for Nortel if it is unable to secure alternative support for obligations arising from certain normal course business activities, or any inability of Nortel’s subsidiaries to provide it with sufficient funding; any negative effect to Nortel of the need to make larger defined benefit plans contributions in the future or exposure to customer credit risks or inability of customers to fulfill payment obligations under customer financing arrangements; any negative impact on Nortel’s ability to make future acquisitions, raise capital, issue debt and retain employees arising from stock price volatility and further declines in the market price of Nortel’s publicly traded securities, or the planned share consolidation resulting in a lower total market capitalization or adverse effect on the liquidity of Nortel’s common shares. For additional information with respect to certain of these and other factors, see Nortel’s Annual Report on Form10-K/A, Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q and other securities filings with the SEC. Unless otherwise required by applicable securities laws, Nortel disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

*Nortel, the Nortel logo and the Globemark are trademarks of Nortel Networks. Use of the terms “partner” and “partnership” does not imply a legal partnership between Nortel and any other party.

† Scheduled GA date for North America. Actual GA dates outside of North America vary by region. Please contact your regional representative for actual GA.



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