What Mike doesn’t like

About a year after Mike Zafirovksi became Nortel Networks’ chief executive officer, the company is not quite where he’d like it to be. It’s moving along the path he chose, to be sure, but not quite as quickly as he’d hoped. Revenues are moving in the right direction, but the company isn’t spending as smartly as it should be. And profits aren’t coming as quickly as they should, thanks in no small part to customers shifting eagerly and rapidly to lower-margin next-generation gear.

Zafirovski’s task is immense, simultaneously enacting both short-term and long-term strategies. For example, he doesn’t expect one of his most auspicious maneuvers--a broad unified communications partnership with Microsoft--to start bearing fruit until late next year. And another key focus of the company, WiMAX, is so far revenue-free. People talk about how hard it is to turn the Queen Mary. It’s even tougher to do while you’re scraping barnacles off the hull and plotting a new course, especially if your ultimate goal is to become a submarine. Ah, I’m no good with analogies.

Mark Canepa--who’s trying to enact his own turnaround at a much smaller, nimbler equipment vendor, Extreme Networks--recently likened his task to a NASCAR pit crew repairing a car mid-race without asking its driver to slow down. In Extreme’s case, of course, it's like they only hired the pit crew guys the day before the race, and a moose has wandered onto the track, engulfed in flames. I told you I’m no good with these analogies.