Nortel/Bay deal good news for users

NEWS Networking analysts have welcomed Nortel's $9bn (£5.6bn) acquisition of Bay Networks, saying users will benefit from increased choice and competition in the market. Peter Crowcombe, analyst at Spikes Cavell, said: "It can only be positive for the end user". He explained that by being absorbed into Nortel's network, Bay can attempt to crack Cisco's stranglehold on the market. Bay Networks will continue to function as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Nortel. Dave House, chairman, chief executive officer and president of Bay, will become president of Nortel. The companies claim the combination of technologies will improve the quality of their networking equipment, optimised to carry voice, data and voice across LAN and WAN. Marina Smith, analyst at Datapro, said: "It's a very good product fit and users will get a very good deal out of it." Jean-Paul Seguinea of Meta Group added his approval. "It means there is now a real choice for service providers and, therefore, users between Bay and Cisco products," he said. Paul Trowbridge, spokesman for Bay, said enterprise relationships will remain unchanged, but he added that customer services will hopefully improve. "Nortel will have more engineering resources closer to the user, so Bay will use these to improve user support," he explained.