When the original [Motorola Nortel] deal came about, most of us employees were told we would be a part of the JV. We were given assurances that we had a 5 year deal. There was a lot of development done on the Nortel switch to interface to the Motorola cell sites. We were to the point of making calls but still getting all the maintenance aspects done.

We had several big deals that we lost, because of disputes about equipment. The one that really broke the camels back was a customer that wanted a system with lots of Nortel equipment. The Motorola side rejected it, and said we needed to have more Motorola equipment.

The sales guy went back and got some, not much, Motorola equipment added. Motorola rejected it again, and when the sales guy went back a third time, the customer told him to just leave. He was not interested in Motorola and wanted Nortel. I do not remember the exact amount of the deal, but it was ten's of millions.

Motorola thought Nortel was selling Nortel only systems on purpose. The simple truth of the matter was the customer wanted a working system right away, and the JV product was not available. There was no trust between the two companies.

We had assemble a very good team. The executives we had hired were top notch. They did everything possible to make the JV work, but the egos of each company doomed it. Not only did they fight about how much of each companies equipment was in the deals, there was lots of fighting about who should change code and equipment to interface to each other.

It really is a shame this did not work. At the time Nortel was considered the best switch on the market. Motorola was considered the best Cell sites on the market. Had the JV survived, I have no doubt that both companies would be in better shape today.