Motorola, Nortel to combine networking units

According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, Motorola and Nortel have been in talks for nearly a month to forge a joint venture involving the two companies' wireless networking technology groups. The current talks center on a JV that gives Nortel majority ownership and Motorola a minority stake. The two companies mulled another arrangement whereby each would take 40 percent of the venture, while the remaining 20 percent would be held by a financial investor, however, the companies scrapped that idea once private equity proved hard to raise.

Analysts estimate that the potential joint venture would have sales of about $10 billion. The new JV would also include Motorola's iDEN network technology.

For more on the potential JV:
- read this article from the WSJ