Nortel carrier softswitch biz still thriving

From the 'counter-intuitive stats' files:

Nortel has had a challenging year in 2009, entering into bankruptcy protection in January. Yet even with its financial challenges, according to a pair of industry research forecasts, Nortel is still the leader in the carrier softwswitch market.

In release issues this AM by Nortel, they cite research from Dell'Oro Group and from Infonetics research that shows Nortel as the leader. Dell'Oro reported that Nortel has a global market share for softswitchs of 20.3 percent
Infonetics reported that in North America, Nortel held a 59.1 percent market share by revenue and 29 percent in EMEA.

With such (reported) strong revenue shares, it's somewhat interesting to note that Nortel itself is still losing money. For the first quarter of 2009, Nortel lost $507 million.

Clearly there is a disconnect - Nortel has some market leading products, yet it is still losing money. That's the challenge that Nortel's management continues to face as it tries to restructure its business. Cut out the money losing operation, become more efficient and continue to grow the technologies that are already winners.

It's no small task, and it sure will be interesting to see if Nortel can successful emerge from its restructing as a leader in the areas that it currently leads in (like the carrier softswitch market).