Jul. 22--A rival's bid to buy Nortel Networks' Enterprise Solutions business unit could determine the fate of hundreds of local Nortel workers whose futures have been in limbo since Nortel filed for bankruptcy protection in January.

Enterprise Solutions is run out of Research Triangle Park and accounts for nearly a third of Nortel's 25,000 remaining workers worldwide, a total that now includes 1,850 at RTP. Enterprise is Nortel's second-largest division, selling communications, data and network security services to businesses and government agencies.

Avaya is offering $475 million for Nortel's Enterprise assets in North America, South America, Asia, Europe, Middle East and Africa. Nortel officials said this week that New Jersey-based Avaya is making an opening bid in a bankruptcy auction, and analysts said Nortel's employees and customers should expect counter offers.

"It's pretty clear there will be more bidders," said Mark Fabbi, an analyst in Toronto for the research firm Gartner. "At the end of the process, we will have a winner."

The jockeying and uncertainty will define the lives of workers for the coming months as competitors vie with each other to pick off the choicest pieces of Nortel, a once formidable rival that is expected to be dismantled before the year is out. Last month, Finnish-German venture Nokia Siemens Networks offered $650 million for Nortel's wireless division, a bid now being challenged by Research in Motion, the Canadian maker of the BlackBerry phone.

Late Tuesday, New York investment firm MatlinPatterson Global Advisers offered to buy Nortel's wireless unit for $725 million, a bid it said offered a "superior outcome" for Nortel stakeholders.

If a deal is finalized with Avaya, it would transfer prominent Nortel customer accounts such as the U.S. Postal Service, Social Security Administration and the New York Stock Exchange.

It would push Avaya ahead of Cisco Systems as the market leader in selling phones and equipment to businesses but would still leave Cisco as the dominant business supplier of routers and switches.

Many of Nortel's Enterprise workers provide field installations, technical support and work in sales. It's not clear how many Enterprise workers are left at Nortel's RTP site, which is headed by Joel Hackney, Nortel's president of Enterprise Solutions.

Avaya's interest in the Enterprise unit lies in acquiring Nortel's broad customer base and product distribution network for its own equipment, said Zeus Kerravala, Senior Vice President of Enterprise Research with the Yankee Group in Boston.

Spokesmen for both companies would not discuss the implications for Nortel's workers of Avaya's offer.

Possibly two-thirds of Nortel's Enterprise workers would find employment with Avaya, while one-third would be at risk of being judged redundant, said Mike Sapien, a telecommunications industry analyst in California with the research firm Ovum. Those proportions would vary with different bidders, however.

Nortel's Enterprise sales have been falling precipitously, down to $395 million in the first quarter, a 41 percent decline in one year. In 2008, Enterprise sales were $2.4 billion in a year when Nortel posted a net loss of nearly $5.8 billion.

john.murawski@newsobserver.com or 919-829-8932

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