Nortel Networks president leaves merged company
Exactly one year to the day that Nortel Networks Corp. bought Bay Networks Inc., the company announced that Dave House will leave his post as Nortel president by the end of August.
House will remain on Nortel’s board of directors, while John Roth, vice-chairman and CEO, will take over House’s operational and management duties, Nortel said. It has no plans to fill the president post, the Brampton, Ont.-based company said.Nortel last year acquired Bay for approximately US$9.1 billion, starting its shift from voice to IP communications. House — Bay’s CEO at the time — stayed on to become Nortel’s president. House’s departure wasn’t a big surprise to one analyst. House had prepared Bay to be acquired after the 1994 merger between Wellfleet Communications Inc. and SynOptics Inc. that created Bay, said Virginia Brooks, an analyst at Boston-based Aberdeen Group Inc. House’s task was to get a then-struggling Bay “ready to go to the dance and that’s just what he did,” Brooks said. Meanwhile, Bill Hawe was appointed senior vice-president and chief technology officer for Nortel, the company said.
