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.

Page(s)   1