The first headline in the news that Nortel issued just a few hours ago centered around the 'stalking horse' agreement that Nortel has entered into with Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) to purchase Nortel's CDMA and LTE assets.

But it's the secondary headline that many people -- employees, customers, and others -- will be just as interested in: "Company Advancing in Its Discussions With External Parties To Sell Other Businesses"

In an email to all Nortel employees, Nortel CEO Mike Zafirovski dedicates much of his thoughts to outlining the path Nortel has chosen to sell its other business units, and what this means for employees and customers.

Nortel's biggest annual Enterprise customer event, Global Connect, has kicked off this week in Pittsburgh.

The event, which is hosted every year by INNUA (International Nortel Networks Users Association), provides a forum for members to interact with Nortel execs and technology experts, 100+ networking vendors, other industry peers and customers - and, the opportunity to test drive Nortel's latest solutions and demos first hand.

Following this morning's 1Q09 financials announcement, Nortel president and CEO Mike Zafirovski sent an email to the entire Nortel employee base:

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From: Mike Zafirovski, CEO

To: Nortel Employees

May 11, 2009

Team Nortel:

Today we announced our results for the first quarter as well as provided an update on our business and strategy going forward. I know you have been waiting for news around Nortel's -- and your -- future. I don't have all the answers, but I will share as much as I can with you.

Mike's internal Zmails seem to find their way to a variety of blogs once they are issued, so I thought I'd simply post it here for all to see. You can read his Zmail below in its entirety.

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From: Mike Zafirovski, CEO

To: Nortel Employees

April 9, 2009

Team Nortel:

In the past few days, we have continued to see speculation in the press about our future. We will bring clarity to the various stories soon, and I hope to provide all of you with a more accurate and clear description of our path in the next few weeks. In the interim, the work continues.

Late last week I had a chance to talk to Samih Elhage. Samih is the president of Nortel's Carrier VoIP and Application Solutions group. Carrier VoIP is an area that Nortel knows well, having led the market for seven years running.

I talked to Samih about where the carrier VoIP market was going, especially considering the current economic environment and Nortel's filing status. We also talked about competitive pressures that service providers are facing from cable operators, as well as to the current deployment status of IMS.

Below is our conversation.

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What is your role within Nortel?

After yesterday's Nortel press release announcing our financial results for 4Q and full year 2008, Nortel CEO Mike Zafirovski and a few other execs talked to the media about the results and what they mean for Nortel.

Here are links to a few of the resulting articles:

• Bloomberg had this article after talking to Mike Z, which included this interesting paragraph on customer demand:

• Corporate spending on telecommunications equipment has “stabilized at low levels,” Zafirovski said in an interview. “We’re not seeing a decline but we’re not seeing the upticks” to signal a rebound in spending, he said.

Nortel this morning has just issued this press release announcing our financial results for 4Q and full year 2008. Here's a quick cut/paste of the top bullets in the release.

• Revenues in fourth quarter of $2.72 billion, decreased 15 percent compared to 2007

• Non-cash charges of $2.19 billion reducing goodwill and deferred tax assets, reflected in a net loss in fourth quarter of $2.13 billion

• Management Operating Margin of 11 percent in fourth quarter, up 335 bps from the prior year, and full year of 5.4 percent, up 170 bps, from the prior year and the highest since 2000

• Operating expenses in the fourth quarter were down 30 percent from the prior year and down 10 percent sequentially

• Cash balance, as at December 31, 2008, of $2.40 billion

Yesterday after Nortel made the announcement of 3,200 additional layoffs, Nortel CEO Mike Z talked to several major media outlets about the news, as well as Nortel's overall restructuring efforts.

Some of Mike's comments provided some additional detail that I hadn't seen elsewhere, so I have provided a few quotes below as well as links back to the relevant articles.

Mike Z talked to the Toronto Star, resulting in this article that provides several interesting quotes and details, specifically on possible timing:

Zafirovski said in an interview that he is working feverishly alongside other Nortel executives to put together a restructuring plan by early May that will need to be approved by the company's creditors and the courts.

No surprise, the universal topic hanging over Mobile World Congress this year is today's challenging economic climate, fueling widespread discussion on how the mobile industry can best compete in such a tough environment.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer went so far as to say that it's a "super interesting time to talk about the mobile industry". Microsoft is making a big push at MWC this year to drive uptake for their mobile platform, Windows Mobile, in an attempt to take a bigger bite out of Apple's iPhone success.

Next week the mobile industry elite will gather once again in Barcelona for Mobile World Congress - the wireless industry's largest trade show.

Mike Z and senior Nortel executives will be meeting with dozens of our biggest customers, and we'll be showcasing our latest wireless technologies, including world firsts in next-generation video and LTE, new carrier VoIP applications, and new services designed to help our customers cash in via new revenue offerings. For more info on our presence at MWC, check out our show announcement.

Over the last few days the hiring of a new leader of Nortel's enterprise data business has generated some interest, as John McHugh has been hired on as Nortel's vice president of Enterprise Data Solutions.

John McHugh brings a tremendous amount of industry experience and success to his new job at Nortel. During his previous 26 year role at HP, John was responsible for building their ProCurve networking unit from the ground up into a $1 billion business. John has been a visible and outspoken leader in the enterprise networking infrastructure market, and has also previously been named one of Network Computing's "Top 50 Most Powerful People in Networking."

In his new role, McHugh will have end-to-end responsibility for Nortel's enterprise data networking products, including R&D, operations, marketing and business development. John will be based in Nortel's Raleigh, North Carolina offices.

A new article this morning in wireless online publication Unstrung interviews Nortel's Richard Lowe on Nortel's continuing wireless and LTE ambitions:

"Our wireless asset remains a key part of our carrier customer base. We have a good position in CDMA; we're continuing to do business in GSM and UMTS core. But both businesses are relatively flat. Our intent is to continue to leverage our wireless installed bases and invest in LTE."

Lowe is of course the president of Nortel's carrier networks business, which includes our wireless/4g portfolio.

In the interview, Lowe talks about his ongoing efforts to find partnering opportunities in the LTE space to re-risk the overall investment:

Since Nortel announced last week that it was filing for creditor protection, there has been a wave of news coverage from business media, trade pubs, bloggers and analysts. I have been spending a lot of my time reading through all the coverage (like I'm sure many of you have).

Below are a few articles I pulled on the news that I think stand out as unique. In particular, I've focused on articles that include quotes and opinions from Nortel execs, customers, partners and analysts.

You can get the main story from these articles in Reuters, G&M and Bloomberg, but for the basis of my list below I'm trying to filter through the 90% of articles that report the same basic elements to find ones that went a level deeper.

On Wednesday morning, Nortel issued this press release announcing that it is filing for creditor protection in the U.S., Canada and the UK in order to undertake a comprehensive business and financial restructuring (referred to as CCAA in Canada, Chapter 11 in the U.S. and an Administration in the UK).

You can read the press release here: http://www2.nortel.com/go/news_detail.jsp?cat_id=-8055&oid=100251345&locale=en-U S

Nortel has created a microsite to act as a single repository of information and documents on Nortel's restructuring. This microsite will not only provide immediate information about what Nortel's restructuring means for a variety of audiences, it will also serve as a repository of information over time as Nortel goes through this process.

This morning the Wall Street Journal published an article that Nortel "has sought legal counsel to explore bankruptcy-court protection from creditors in the event that its restructuring plan fails, according to people familiar with the situation." This WSJ story has filtered through to various other publications as well.

To be clear, Nortel's Ronald Alepian expressed to the WSJ that no bankruptcy filing is imminent.

Just a few weeks ago, Standard & Poor's released a report reaffirming our credit rating, and stating that "The affirmation primarily reflects our view that Nortel should be able to sustain adequate levels of liquidity in the next 12-18 months to support its high fixed charges and turnaround efforts despite difficult market conditions and company-specific challenges."