The world financial crisis has taken its toll on big companies and now it’s Norte’s turn to be in trouble. The biggest Canadian telecommunications equipment maker is filed for bankruptcy and is seeking help from the Canadian government in order to remain a viable company.

The Canadian government has agreed to help the telecommunications company offering $24 million in short-term financing and is open to discussing other loans.

The last figures made public show that Nortel had a $4.5 billion in debt and $2.4 billion in cash. Recently, Nortel has declared that they still have $2.4 million in cash but their debt was not made public.

During the 1990s telecom and Internet boom, Nortel had more than 95,000 employees and a market capitalization of $297 billion and was regarded as Canada’s top telecommunications company. This situation is very bad for Nortel even if it manages to pull itself out from the crisis.

Right now, Nortel is seriously losing business to other companies like Cisco Systems Inc. and China's Huawei Technologies Co. Customers have already started delaying orders from Nortel as the company is losing viability fast.

Analysts say that the cash Nortel currently has would allow it to run its business this whole year and maybe a part of 2010, but declaring bankruptcy is better and it could offer them some protection.

Nortel has declared that it has been in a process of turnaround since 2005 and that the financial crisis the world is experiencing has given their final blow.