Nortel: What's The Fallout?

In what has to go down as one of the quietest major management changes ever, Nortel Networks last week canned

its CEO, CFO and its controller, an extraordinary event that caused not much more than a blip on the major business radar screens.

The real question here is: Will there be any backlash among purchasers of networking hardware? Since Nortel's woes revolve around its accounting, there's no real way right now to discern if the company is actually improving its sales. And since we're still in the midst of Googlemania in the mainstream business press, there apparently hasn't been time to plumb the depths of what Nortel's woes will mean for the networking industry.

Nortel probably won't suffer too greatly in the short term, since its product-purchase cycles are so long. The real story may not be told for several months or even a year, to see if competitors can use Nortel's snafu to their advantage. However, you can let us know instantly if the news has affected your company's purchase decisions, by taking our online poll, found here.