Nortel Unified Communications Solution Sparks Rapid Customer Uptake

Milestone 1,000th Unit of New Business Communications Manager 450 Shipped

TORONTO – Launched October 8, the Nortel* [TSX: NT, OTC: NRTLQ] Business Communications Manager (BCM) 450 , has already shipped 1000 units – demonstrating strong global demand for a solution that connects people faster, improves collaboration and speeds time to decision for firms with up to 300 employees.

The solution helps medium-sized business more easily and cost-effectively transition to unified communications and enables them to leverage up to 70 percent of their original investment by making the most of their existing equipment.

“This is the fastest-selling IP telephony solution we’ve ever launched and it’s already the recipient of a key industry award ,” said Joel Hackney, president, Enterprise Solutions, Nortel. “The tremendous response to the BCM450 points to the mid-market’s desire to realize the benefits of unified communications. Not only does BCM450 bring speed and simplicity to how medium sized businesses communicate, it allows them to fully leverage their prior investments with Nortel.”

Nortel’s BCM450 expands the Company’s addressable market while offering greater capacity for businesses like Ronald Blue & Co. LLC **. Ronald Blue & Co. is a financial and investment consulting firm serving 5,000 clients from 16 offices across the United States. For them, BCM450 represents a move towards unified communications and a way to extend up to 70 percent of their original network investment because BCM450 can work with their legacy digital voice communications equipment.

“We manage approximately $5 billion in investment assets and were recently ranked among Forbes.com’s ’Top 50 Fee-Only Advisers’ ** so the stakes are high for us,” said John Albers, chief information officer and principal, Ronald Blue & Co. “We chose the BCM450 solution to help increase our productivity and client response time. We like the features such as consolidated voice and email messages on a single device. Plus, the product can scale as we grow.”

BCM450 is available from Nortel, or through its strategic channel partners like BT.

“Unified communications helps a business to be more productive and profitable by keeping it connected to customers, suppliers and partners whenever and wherever staff is based. Through the integration of multiple communications channels onto a single platform, BCM450 allows small businesses to control costs in the current climate,” said John Dovey, director, IT services, BT Business.

In addition to Nortel’s market leading unified messaging capability, which combines voicemail, fax and e-mail into a single location that can be accessed from anywhere, whether over the Internet or by telephone, the BCM450 also provides:

* Message forwarding, which sends voicemails and faxes to the desktop or mobile device deemed most convenient by the user or organization. For workers on the move, this can save long distance and roaming charges when retrieving messages.
* Meet-Me Conferencing that can establish teleconferences for up to 120 participants. This can eliminate the need for external services and reduce teleconferencing expenses.
* Computer Telephony Integration, which allows the use of third-party applications to control telephone services, such as click-to-call or automatic screen “pop” with customer information when they call.
* Intelligent Contact Center functionality, which quickly directs clients to the right contact.
* Energy cost savings up to 40 percent over similar offerings from the competition.¹

BCM450 is a member of the flagship BCM portfolio, which includes the BCM50. Both offer equivalent capabilities differing only in customer target size. These solutions can enhance the profitability of Nortel partners. They also offer reduced training requirements and a simpler sales proposition.

Nortel BCM solutions round out the Company’s overall SMB portfolio which has been evaluated ’five-out-of-five’ by industry analyst firm Gartner in its Critical Capabilities for Unified Communications report.² Market research firm Dell’Oro ranks Nortel number one for the first three quarters of 2008 based on number of Hybrid-IP lines shipped globally.

Nortel is a recognized leader in delivering communications capabilities that make the promise of Business Made Simple a reality for our customers. Our next-generation technologies, for both service provider and enterprise networks, support multimedia and business-critical applications. Nortel’s technologies are designed to help eliminate today’s barriers to efficiency, speed and performance by simplifying networks and connecting people to the information they need, when they need it. Nortel does business in more than 150 countries around the world. 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 from those contemplated in forward-looking statements. For additional information with respect to certain of these and other factors, see Nortel’s Annual Report on Form10-K, Quarterly Reports 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.
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Use of the terms “partner” and “partnership” does not imply a legal partnership between Nortel and any other party.
¹Based on Nortel’s internal test results conducted in August 2008 comparing the energy consumption in the laboratory of a BCM450 with 150 phones and seven 4526T-PWR (NA PC) with the published energy consumption figures provided in data sheets of comparably equipped and configured competitive products.
²Gartner, Critical Capabilities for Unified Communications, Bern Elliot, September 16, 2008. The Critical Capabilities report is copyrighted 2008 by Gartner, Inc. and is reused with permission. The Critical Capabilities report is a comparative analysis which scores competing products against a set of critical differentiators identified by Gartner. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in the Critical Capabilities report, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest rating. Gartner disclaims all warranties, express or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose