Duncan Stewart, a partner in Tera Capital, has a different take on Nortel in today's National Post. Rather than being worried about the abrupt depature of the Two Garys (COO Daichendt and CTO Kunis), Stewart argues Nortel's going to be alright. With sales climbing a little and costs continuing to decline, he believes Nortel should become profitable and cash flow positive again. "They may be broken up, they may be bought, but most likely is that they will keep trying to grow a little, make a little money and pretend they aren't looking too long in the tooth," Stewart writes in his weekly column. While I can't disagree with Stewart's kinda/sorta optimistic outlook, the big unknown facing Nortel is whether its technology portfolio can continue to keep it in the top tier of telecom equipment suppliers. Accounting scandals can be resolved, executives can be replaced but if you're not selling leading-edge technology it doesn't give you much of an opportunity to see strong growth. Sure, sales will climb a bit if you can take advantage of a large, existing customer base but where's the fun in that? I'm looking for Nortel to be more pro-active strategically than spending nearly half a billion dollars on a mid-tier systems integrator. I'm looking for more than talk about India's prospects and why Nortel needs to lose nearly $200 million on a wireless contract with BSNL to establish a foothold in a market where plenty of other suppliers are scrambling for business. Maybe some of the answers will come at next week's AGM. You can be assured shareholders will ask all kinds of questions. Whether they will be happy with the answers is left to be seen.