Nortel boosts SMB focus in India with new products

NEW DELHI

OCTOBER 6, 2006

Nortel has announced new product offering targeted at the burgeoning SMB
segment in India.

Canada-based Nortel's new product range includes switches, routers and access
points and will feature the SMB-specific Business Communications Manager
(BCM50), and a digital hybrid PBX supplied by Nortel's Korean JV, LG-Nortel.

Nortel has also established a long-term strategy to cater to specific needs
and challenges of SMB customers. Nortel India, MD, Ravi Chauhan said, "India is
the first country in Asia where the SMB initiative is being rolled out, and is
backed up by dedicated marketing, support infrastructure and people. The SMB
initiative will be one of Nortel's biggest product rollouts in India, with
multi-city road shows taking the solutions out to customers across the country."

He added, "Nortel is gearing up to become a dominant player in the SMB
segment. We have streamlined our training processes and established a robust
ecosystem for our SMB solutions that will help channel partners deliver the
value of Nortel's voice and data solutions across India at a really affordable
cost. Our solutions will cater to businesses even as small as three to five
staff."

Commenting on Nortel's channel strategy, ER Ashok Kumar, Director-SMB, Nortel
India said, "We will follow the 'four E' approach: Engage, Enable, Excite and
Execute. As part of enabling our channel partners, we will invest the manpower
and resources to educate them, provide complete technical support and develop a
unique rewards program. There is an increasing number of data networking dealers
who aspire to get into voice networking, and vice-versa. We will work with them
and train them to broaden their knowledge."

To provide an end-to-end value proposition to SMB customers Nortel will also
set up a dedicated national customer support center. This support center will be
accessible through a toll free number, which will provide customers a single
interface for all post-deployment support and services. Nortel's SMB solutions
will be distributed through Ingram Micro and its focused resellers covering the
length and breadth of the SMB segment across the country.