For most Chinese reporters, William Owens, president and chief executive officer of Nortel Networks (Corporation) of Canada, is a new face. In April this year, former president Frank Dunn of Nortel Networks "got out of office" due to account scandal, William Owens, then a board director of the corporation, was appointed the new helmsman of Nortel Networks. He deserves to be called a man entrusted with a mission at critical moment. After making a series of structural adjustments and work arrangements for the corporation, Owens began his first global tour since he took office, while his China visit in October is the last leg in the itinerary of his global tour.

Making use of his leisure time for visiting clients and familiarizing himself with the market situation, Owens accepted an interview given by Ma Xiaoning, a People's Daily reporter, at the conference room of Nortel Networks (China) Co. Ltd.

As a common saying goes, "A newly appointed official lights up three torches of fire--works hard to show his efficiency", William Owens also ignited a fire of reform at Nortel Networks. Besides setting up for the first time the post of "chief executive officer to supervise the code of ethics"--to strengthen financial auditing work, he merged the Nortel Networks' original wireless, fixed, enterprise and optical networking departments into two departments of enterprise and operator. He told this reporter that streamlining the administrative structure is not because of the influence of the account-related scandal, but rather it is out of a forward-looking consideration of Nortel Networks' global telecom market. "Fierce market competition no longer allows us to consider wireless network, fixed network and optical network separately as we did before, phonetic, data, video frequencies and all other telecom requirements must be met in one single web, future networks are being merged together." Nortel Networks is one of the world's telecom enterprises that are the first to initiate the merger of networks. This new-type network will, through the integration of traditional networking elements, help enterprise customers realize higher mobility and efficiency at lower costs, at the same time, it can enable operators to provide clients with more wonderful profitable business, and can effectively manage the daily increasing networking flow.

The merger of networks undoubtedly has provided people with a more intelligent and more enticing multi-media prospect. However, when the enterprise or the operator merges all networks on one single networking platform, all-layer end-to-end safety it covers becomes more important. In the face of the question raised by the reporter about this, Williams Owens says safety mobility is an important component of Nortel Networks' tactics of integration. Nortel Networks' unique advantage in the aspect of safety makes it a leader publicly recognized by the industrial insiders. The corporation's safety technologies not only include fire bulkheads and other related precautious software, but also its unique way of safety testing, that is, conducting tests of its tightly wrapped networking data, to see whether they are invaded by virus, so as to ensure the safety of future merged networks. "I hope the clients not only regard Nortel Networks as an equipment supplier, but also as a versatile networking expert."

Nortel Networks is known for its technological innovation. In his talks, William Owens appeared to be proud of the corporation's possession of a high-quality R&D contingent, praising its members as the "most precious wealth" of the corporation. He said that over one-third of the corporation's existing staff members are R&D personnel scattered about in 10 countries. According to Owens, the development of the telecom market is not a process of linear development, there will be the emergence of many mutable technologies along with the continuous innovation of technology. A farsighted company will see the future development trends and will invest in technical research and development in light of these trends. In this sense, investing in R&D means investing in the future.

He disclosed that with a view to maintaining its leading position in the field of technical innovation, his corporation has invested as much as several billion US dollars in future networking technology.

Owens particularly mentioned Nortel Networks' R&D work in China, profusely praised Chinese R&D personnel, saying that they are "very wise and being devoted to their work", "can do the world's first-rate R&D work", which can be used not only in the Chinese market, but also in other markets. Over the past 30-odd years since Nortel Networks entered China, it has scored brilliant achievements in wireless, wire, enterprise and optical fields of network, main Chinese telecom operators are all clients of the corporation. The mythically developing Chinese telecom undertaking has made China the focus of Nortel Networks' global strategy. In order to further strengthen localization, Nortel Networks last year declared that it would allocate US$200 million to strengthen its R&D force in China in the next three years and has started to build in Beijing Wangjing Sci-Tech Park area new Nortel Networks large China regional headquarters and R&D center. Owens indicated that Nortel's China strategy will always remain as it is, "that's because, for us, there is no other market more important than China. Contrary to the general trend of Nortel's global reduction of staff, Nortel's size of staff in China assumes the tendency of expansion." But he also admitted that even in the Chinese market, successful Nortel is also faced with the challenges posed by the world's other telecom giants and the rapidly rising Chinese local companies. But he believes that challenge brings on pressures, but it also "makes us become more clever". Nortel exerts itself in R&D work, while gradually contracting out the production of equipment. This is a wise move to consolidate its technological advantage.

Owens talked freely and frankly, this reporter can hardly link this Nortel president well familiar with telecom business with the image of the former vice-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the commander of the US Sixth Fleet during the first Gulf War in 1990 and 1991. Owens clearly said to this reporter that although he had served in the US Army for many years, he had received the professional training in technology, he once set up two communication technological companies and served as president of a high-tech firm equivalent to the size of three quarters of Nortel. It is precisely because of this rich management expertise that makes him the first choice for the post of Nortel's president.

At the same time, he also holds that to lead a modernized army and a hi-tech enterprise like Nortel involves the management of both man and technology and requires no essentially different capability of leadership. His objective is to lead, during his tenure of office, Nortel to become an information telecom company continued to be technically advanced and financially open and transparent, so that the life of more people will become more unusually brilliant by virtue of Nortel's technology and service.

The text of the interview is carried on page 3 of People's Daily on October 25, 2004 and translated by People's Daily Online