Nortel's Morin on optical networking

We've been able to maintain, even through the lows, our position as No. 1 in optical.

How many jobs were lost in optical since the bust? I can't say with optical, but Nortel had 100,000 employees and went down to 36,000. We've right-sized in terms of business and regions and operations.

The layoffs were tough. But with a lot of good long-term employees, with Nortel being global and with enterprise, wireless, wire line and optical divisions, there was a lot of moving around. ... Some who left have come back into Nortel. We're leveraging our portfolio, allowing us to do some new technology, such as bringing wireless into optical with the transporter and receiver.

What are you doing about Cisco, since they're always the big guy on the block? Well, I'd argue in optical that we're the big guy on the block. In mind share and market share, we have a stronger position. It's for us to lose. But to stay on top, you have to innovate.

So what is the next innovation in optical? The next innovation for us is that we'll have more packet functionality in IP networks, including statistical multiplexing for example. What we are bringing along is more Layer 2 packet functionality. You'll see us come out with an Optical Metro Ethernet platform, the 6500, a converged platform that does Layer 1, 2 and 3 (and) packet Sonet with DWDM onto optical. That's more functionality on a single platform, more efficiency and more survivability and a much simpler network.