Nortel Partners To Deliver More Customer Value with New Incentive Programmes

Programmes enable EMEA Channel Partners to Aggressively Boost Revenues

LONDON - Channel Partners working with Nortel* [TSX: NT, OTC: NRTLQ] in Europe, Middle East and Africa can now boost their revenue potential and profit return by taking advantage of incentive programmes offered by Nortel. These new programmes, launched by Nortel in early 2009, provide for channel loyalty rewards, competitive pricing initiatives and marketing support for Unified Communications and Multimedia Applications equipment for SMB and Enterprise customers.

"Channel partners play an integral role in our market strategy, and we want to share with them our renewed commitment by providing better incentives and flexibility to sell to both Nortel’s installed base and to win new customers" said Amanda Giddins, pan European channels leader, Nortel Europe. "Customers today are looking to upgrade to newer technologies that can drive down costs, improve time to revenue and enhance their chances to succeed in the current economic climate"

Nortel’s new Channel Loyalty Programme** offers strategic reseller partners (buying from Nortel and its Premier Distributors) a simple and flexible incentive plan to reward partners for reaching or exceeding their quarterly revenue targets, enabling them to increase margin.

Building on current customers loyalty, Nortel launched Match Plus,*** a programme enabling Nortel channel partners to match or beat any like-for-like commercial competitive bid on any solution within Nortel’s SMB and Enterprise voice, data and applications portfolios.

Nortel also introduced Fast Start 2,**** a new programme to help partners more easily sell new IP Telephony systems that can then be expanded and grow with end-user customer needs as they convert more users to IP, Unified Communications and Multimedia Applications. Customers can also benefit from using these Fast Start packages for UC and Multimedia Applications trials with the option to buy the solutions as their business needs warrant.

"The introduction of the new Nortel programmes enables Nortel’s partners to attract new customers as well as better support their existing clients" said Darren Boyce, managing director at Applinet plc. "In a time when capital costs and investment in new technologies is being closely guarded, today’s Enterprises will welcome programs like Fast Start 2, and the reseller community will enjoy the ability to become more profitable for their loyalty"

Nortel has a global installed base of more than 80 million data ports and 80 million voice lines, more than any other competitor. Recent Nortel market milestones include Business Communication Manager 450 (BCM450) product which is one of Nortel’s fastest selling products, and recently surpassed its one-thousandth shipment, only three months from its launch.

The Business Communication Manager product is a part of Nortel’s converged voice and data SMB portfolio which recently received a ’five-out-of-five’ rating in Gartner’s Critical capabilities for Unified Communications report.*****

Market research firm Dell’Oro ranks Nortel as the worldwide leader in the enterprise voice market and worldwide PBX line shipments over the 12 months 3Q07-2Q08.Gartner positioned Nortel in the Leaders’ quadrant of the 2008 Magic Quadrant for Unified Communications, the 2008 Magic Quadrant for Corporate Telephony and the 2008 Magic Quadrant for Contact Center Infrastructure, Worldwide.******

About Nortel (in Administration)
Nortel is a recognized leader in delivering communications capabilities that make the promise of Business Made Simple a reality for our customers. Our next-generation technologies, for both service provider and enterprise networks, support multimedia and business-critical applications. Nortel’s technologies are designed to help eliminate today’s barriers to efficiency, speed and performance by simplifying networks and connecting people to the information they need, when they need it. Nortel does business in more than 150 countries around the world. For more information, visit Nortel on the Web at www.nortel.com . For the latest Nortel news, visit www.nortel.com/news .

Certain statements in this press release may contain words such as "could", "expects", "may", "anticipates", "believes", "intends", "estimates", "targets", "envisions", "seeks" and other similar language and are considered forward-looking statements or information under applicable securities legislation. These statements are based on Nortel’s current expectations, estimates, forecasts and projections about the operating environment, economies and markets in which Nortel operates. These statements are subject to important assumptions, risks and uncertainties, which are difficult to predict and the actual outcome may be materially different from those contemplated in forward-looking statements. For additional information with respect to certain of these and other factors, see Nortel’s Annual Report on Form10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and other securities filings with the SEC. Unless otherwise required by applicable securities laws, Nortel disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

*Nortel, the Nortel logo and the Globemark are trademarks of Nortel Networks.
**Channel Loyalty Program started January ’09 and will expire 30th June ’09.
***Match Plus programme started 2nd February ’09 and has no set expiry date. It covers the entire Enterprise Voice/data/Applications product catalogue and is exclusively available to Nortel’s Channel of accredited Value-Add Distributors and Direct & Indirect Resellers in Europe, Middle East and Africa.
****Fast Start 2 programme started January ’09 and will expire on 3rd July ’09. It applies to the Nortel PBX installed base or a third party PBX where the customer wants to add IP Telephony without replacing or upgrading an incumbent system. Start packages include the Nortel CS1000 SA (Standard Availability) or CS 1000 HA (High Availability) options, plus Nortel 1230 IP Phones or 1140E gigabit IP Phones available for both CS 1000 versions. It is available through Nortel or its Channel of accredited Value-Add Distributors and Direct & Indirect Resellers in Europe, Middle East and Africa.
*****Gartner, Critical Capabilities for Unified Communications, Bern Elliot, September 16, 2008. The Critical Capabilities report is copyrighted 2008 by Gartner, Inc. and is reused with permission. The Critical Capabilities report is a comparative analysis which scores competing products against a set of critical differentiators identified by Gartner. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in the Critical Capabilities report, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest rating. Gartner disclaims all warranties, express or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.
****** The Magic Quadrants are copyrighted 2008 by Gartner, Inc. and are reused with permission. The Magic Quadrant is a graphical representation of a marketplace at and for a specific time period. It depicts Gartner’s analysis of how certain vendors measure against criteria for that marketplace, as defined by Gartner. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in the Magic Quadrant, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors placed in the "Leaders" quadrant. The Magic Quadrant is intended solely as a research tool, and is not meant to be a specific guide to action. Gartner disclaims all warranties, express or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.
Use of the terms "partner" and "partnership" does not imply a legal partnership between Nortel and any other party.