Nortel back on track?

Nortel Networks appears to be recovering from its tumultuous past in which the telecom equipment maker was plagued by an accounting scandal and a series of financial restatements. Today the company announced that its first-quarter revenues would be $2.48 billion, up four percent year-over-year. Gross margin is also expected to be slightly higher than 40 percent of revenue. However, the company expects its revenue for the full year to be flat or down slightly compared to 2006. This is a result of the firm's divestiture of its UMTS Access business. In December, Nortel sold its UMTS business to Alcatel-Lucent for $320 million.

Nortel also announced that it will provide network communications equipment for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games in Vancouver. Nortel will be providing the converged local area network equipment to VANOC at 15 Games venues in both Vancouver and Whistler, as well as at the Vancouver 2010 headquarters and numerous supporting venues.

In other Nortel news, the company appointed David Drinkwater as interim CFO. He will replace former CFO Peter Currie who stepped down at the end of April. Drinkwater has been the company's chief legal officer since December 2005. Gordon Davies will assume the role of interim chief legal officer.

For more on Nortel:
- see this article in CIO