Networking expert, Ciena has set up shop in New Zealand and Australia, which is prompted by its acquisition of Nortel Networks' metro Ethernet business in the wake of Nortel's insolvency. Previous Nortel offices in the two nations are now Ciena ones.

Ciena inherited two ex- Nortel Asia-Pacific Executives, Anthony Mclachlan and David McDermott, when it bought the MEN. Mclachlan and McDermott have taken up the roles of Asia-Pacific General Manager and Australia-New Zealand local Director at Ciena, correspondingly.

A media statement from Ciena announcing the change states: McDermott is straight accountable for managing Ciena's Australian and New Zealand trade, which takes in all on hand consumer accounts inherited with the help of the MEN acquirement, which also includes Optus, AAPT, Uecomm, VERNet and the Australian Securities Exchange in Australia, and TelstraClear and Southern Cross in New Zealand.

Mclachlan and McDermott are both Nortel veterans, each with more than a decade's knowledge at the retailer.

Ciena's shift to establish itself here has reverberations of fellow seller, Avaya, which set up Avaya New Zealand following Avaya's acquirement of Nortel's enterprise business after Nortel's insolvency.

While Ciena officers denied there were two development plans for the local trade, one with and one without the NBN, they did grant that there were abundance of options inside the business plan.