Nortel Strong-Arms Open Source Vendor Fonality

leecidivo alerts us to Tom Keating's blog, where he writes about how Nortel forced a former subsidiary to return its open source-based phone system (Fonality) after the subsidiary went public with how happy they are with the Fonality phone system compared to Nortel. Quoting: "What happens when a VoIP blog (yours truly) writes about the fact that a former Nortel subsidiary (Blade Network Technologies) went looking for a new phone system, chose an open-source Asterisk-based solution from Fonality instead of using Nortel's own PBX and then agreed to go on record on the VoIP & Gadgets blog about why they made such a shocking decision? A) Nothing — it's a VoIP blog — who cares? Nortel is an $11 billion dollar company that certainly doesn't read blogs for their news. B) Nortel reads the blog post, is a little peeved, but other than some emails sent internally, no one outside Nortel would ever know they were annoyed. C) A Nortel Board Member flips out over the article, contacts Blade and then pressures Blade to return the Fonality system and have Fonality print a retraction to the blog article (and the subsequent press release)."

Comments

excellent plan

[Lehk228]

so now instead of a few people reading about a company switching to asterisk, all of slashdot reads about how Nortel are a bunch of dicks.

nothing could possibly go wrong with this plan.

Re:excellent plan

[jcr]

Not only that, I'd never heard of Fonality before this. Now I'll know their name and check out what they have to offer the next time I need to shop for a phone system.

Good move, nortel! That's the way to show 'em!

-jcr

The option no one pays attention to

[hateful monkey]

D: Nortel takes the loss and redoubles its efforts to produce a VOIP system that is BETTER THAN THE OTHER OPTIONS! If companies would just shut up and stop trying to use lawyers and politics to keep customers and silence competitors maybe they could consentrate on making a product that is worthy of being used.

misleading article title

[chdig]

Nortel Strong-Armed a competitor via a company that they have a minority interest in, and so the title should be, "Nortel Strong-Arms competitor" instead of "Nortel Strong-Arms Open Source Vendor".

"Competitor" shows the relationship of Fonality to Nortel, while "open source" is just a blatant use of a popular term that does nothing for the article other than to misleadingly cry "look at me!!"

What's Open Source got to do with the story? The phrase appears twice to describe what kind of product Fonality sells, and then not again for the rest of the entire story. If it was a closed system, would it make any difference to the story? Or a bigger question, would the story have made /. at all?

As if we needed any more proof of the power that the blogosphere holds... The only thing Tom Keating has shown about the blogosphere is that it has the power to distort.

Bad publicity === publicity

[el_flynn]

There are two winners here:

(a) Fonality. That a big ape like Nortel sits up and notices what they did, is testament to how well they handled the job of installing a viable alternative to Nortel's own equipment. This simply proves that Fonality and its products are justfiable expenditure.
(b) Asterisk. That a big ape like Nortel is frightened enough of it brings another feather in Asterisk and Digium's hat.

Nortel has embarassed itself on two accounts:
(a) Its own subsidiary refuses to use its products
(b) It's trying to force-feed its product on others -- how bad does that make it look?

Not clear who has done what here

[roman_mir]

Nortel may or may not have strong-armed Fonality. The Fonality guy, Chris, said that Blade's Vikram Mehta (sounds Indian, is he?) tried to strong-arm Fonality and Fonality reminded Blade about the contract that was signed about using their system.

When the author of the blog called Vikram, this guy basically admitted to nothing:

We spoke a little more, but as you can tell, I was getting nowhere with Vikram. However what "wasn't said" spoke volumes -- both from his demeanor and his avoiding answering my questions, in my mind confirmed what Chris said was accurate. I then contacted Nortel to get their perspective. I spoke with a Nortel employee who wishes to remain anonymous. He stated that Eric Schoch, the Nortel board member was travelling and therefore wasn't able to get him to respond. - so the author has believed what Fonality was saying but couldn't really get Blade to confirm this. The author has got a 'gut feeling' that Chris from Fonality was telling the truth and that Vikram from Blade didn't.

Then the author called Nortel:

The employee did however admit that he was aware that Eric sent Vikram (CEO of Blade) a note about the Fonality press release where it simply stated "I would appreciate seeing copies of any news releases that have our name 'Nortel' in it before they go out." The Nortel official explained, "Anything that uses our trademark name we like to take a look at it." The employee added that he was not aware of any pressure applied by Nortel to have Blade reverse their decision on selecting Fonality or forcing a retraction. - so this is the best that we have here and yet the /. story yells out: "Nortel Strong-Arms Open Source Vendor".

Oh, don't forget that the author then brings up the fact that Nortel is loosing market share. Well, duh.

This whole thing may or may not be true actually.