Nortel leans on Open Source customer

NORTEL THREW ITS toys out of the pram after a former subsidiary, Blade Network Technologies, bought an Open Source Voice-over-IP from Fonality instead of using the telco's own PBX.

Nortel probably would not have noticed the change but Fonality had a word with a blogger about why it made the move.

Then, according to the VoIP & Gadgets blog, a Nortel board member saw the article and 'flipped out'. He rang Blade, told it to return the Fonality system and demand that Fonality print a retraction to the blog article.

Nortel still has a minority interest in Blade, otherwise I suspect the outfit would have told the telco to go forth and multiply.

Of course Blade is not talking, but Fonality's CEO, Chris Lyman said he had a call from Stefan Zuckut, Blade's Vice President of Corporate Development. Stefan told him that a board member from Nortel read the blog and hit the roof.

He got a call from the CEO of Blade, Vikram Mehta, who says that he is returning their brand-new, still-in-the-box phone system because Blade had changed its mind.

However Mehta also demanded that Fonality retract its press release where Blade was a case study as to how the Fonality system was more affordable and easier to use than Nortel. Mehta claimed that Fonality had not followed its process for authorising a press release. This was despite the fact that it had been personally signed off by Blade. µ