Nortel's emphasis on green networking could make the vendor a more credible alternative to Cisco in the enterprise and data center. The company claims its products could provide a 50% boost in energy efficiency over competitive offerings -- Cisco being the No. 1 competitor in this market. Nortel also developed a TurboTax-like software program for evaluating the energy efficiency and resultant cost savings of its switches over Cisco's. So Cisco customers with green initiatives and contemplating a secondary or alternative source for their enterprise switches, may have to give the company a look.

The tactic may be working already. Cisco Subnet blogger Brad Reese reported on a tale of a $2 million order that was allegedly yanked from Cisco and awarded to Nortel thanks to results from Nortel's "green calculator." But even so, Cisco probably isn't biting its nails over lost business quite yet. Nortel has its work cut out. Earlier this month, Nortel reorted a loss of $138 million for its latest quarter (Q1), even as it grew revenue 11% to $2.76 billion (a loss of 28 cents per share). Cisco, on the other hand, grew its revenue 10% during the same time period, to $9.8 billion, posted a $1.8 billion profit (net income of 29 cents a share) -- and that's after Cisco deducted $249 million from its results for acquisition-related expenses.

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