- Week Ending October 10, 2003

 A Compilation of News & Events in the Internet Infrastructure Arena

InternetAcceleration News Summary
Not a subscriber, yet? Click here to sign up.

Forgive my middle age memory! They say it's the first thing to go. Last week, we talked about our upcoming schmooze fest coming up -- the N-Square Dinner (Networking Networking dinner) -- but forgot to mention when and where. The date is Wednesday, November 5^th starting at 6PM with dinner at 7PM. The location will be somewhere in the Palo Alto area. Think of it as a sort of infrastructure FLASH CROWD -- we'll call your cell phones at 5:30PM that night and tell you where it is. (Actually, those who RSVP will get an e-mail with the details at the end of the month.). Advanced Technology Ventures, a leading venture capital group that many of you know through their many infrastructure companies in their portfolio, is co-sponsoring this event. The topic of this meeting is "Reengineering Application Protection Subsystems." As evidenced by NetScreen's recent $265M Neoteris acquisition, this is shaping up to be one of the most interesting new product categories to form in awhile -- how to protect applications when they are accessible from almost anywhere. And, coincidently this is also the subject of our next major report. Peter Christy will present a brief overview of an encompassing vision and then give some of the key experts on the subject a chance to chime in with their perspectives. Three of the panelists are NetScreen's David Flynn, VP Marketing, Cisco's Jeffrey Platon, Senior Director, Technology Marketing / Security and ATV's Steve Baloff, General Partner. Tune in next week and we'll tell you who the other panelists are. You're invited. RSVP john@netsedgeonline.com

Christy Sighting -- For all those NRG groupies who may be attending ISPCon, Peter will be leading a panel Monday (10/20) afternoon on the topic of Internet backhaul -- how the edges of the Internet get connected back into the rest.  It's an interesting topic because of the progress that companies like Equinix and Internap are making cleaning up the center of the Internet, and compounded by the fact that backhaul keeps cropping up as 1) the problem in making wireless access points work and 2) providing better service to small businesses.

Riverbed Move To The Launch Pad -- We caught up with our old pals from Riverbed (we first met the team back in their FastForward, soon to be acquired by Inktomi, days). Riverbed has added some interesting twists to the remote office caching / compression / acceleration space. They think they have built a more general platform that includes protocol processing and object storage as core mechanisms. When we first heard about what they were doing (they called themselves NBT up until recently) it seemed like the other file caching plays (e.g. Tacit, DiskSites) dressed up. Now they've added Exchange server caching as a second visible app (keeping performance up while letting the Exchange server be consolidated remotely). The combination of that and a local CIFS or NFS file access and access accelerator starts to look more interesting. And they do compression and claim to beat the current participants at that as well.  Should be fun to see how this shakes out in the market (Riverbed's first offering is just entering beta test now).  As they say on TV "Film at 11!"

Nauticus Questions -- The infrastructure is buzzing with the fact that Nauticus Networks has shut down  - although one of the founders denied it today and we don't have a confirmation from the company. Nauticus developed very powerful, hardware augmented IP connection management capability--a proxy platform on steroids.  We could never understand what the market was they served. Their response was to point out that they could do more and do it cheaper than with any other solution. We never understood who cared (and it sounds like it was the right question to ask).  We wish we were keeping a formal scorecard on the "build special hardware and die" thesis. We know it's not a black-and-white rule, but seems like a good betting rule.

Ironport Sees Spam As Its Opportunity -- When we first heard about Ironport we weren't quite sure what the value proposition was. Ironport had re-engineered sendmail from the bare metal up to create screaming throughput (possible because sendmail was written a long time ago when computers were quite different in terms of CPU speed and memory size). We had no doubt that was possible, but given that computers were getting cheaper and faster by the minute (faster it seemed than mail loads were growing) we weren't sure if enough people would care. Faster processors might actually have resulted in sendmail server loads going down over time, not up. But the surge of spam put an end to that argument by creating a problem that Ironport was born to solve. Not to denigrate Ironport's work, but rather than pay continuing homage to Drew Major and NetWare, you could call Ironport "Sendmail on Netware."  When Drew and others created the Netware O/S 21 years ago, they created a design (table driven, minimal context switching and sharing) that keeps cropping up under today's high performance network-integrated systems. There is a USENIX paper by Major and others that is one of the few descriptions of the initial design.

But Bill Gates says spam goes away -- It might be that Ironport has found their killer app in spam, but Bill Gates says that spam will be going away. In Geneva on Monday at the ITU Telcom World 2003 Conference, Bill Gates proclaimed "...by being able to identify who the sender of the message is and making sure that they are really who they say they are, we'll be able to make this spam problem essentially go away, make it not be something that holds back the scenarios here."

Funding news last week -- Ten investments totaling $113M+ - Grande Communications' investors have committed an additional $45M in equity funding led by Whitney & Co., LLC, The Centennial Funds, and Prime New Ventures. Everypath, mobile task automation software and services, has closed venture financing of $14.3M with new investor, Trident Capital, leading the round. Existing investors included Sevin Rosen Funds, US Venture Partners, AsiaTech Management, Focus Ventures, ArrowPath Venture Capital, Redwood Ventures, Amerindo and Raza Foundries with Bay Partners and Nippon Systems Development as new investors. Bandspeed, wireless LAN access point products, has raised $11.2M in its Series C round of financing. Boingo Wireless has completed its $10M Series B round of financing. The lead investor for the round was Mitsui & Co. Venture Partners with Infonet Services Corporation, Amerindo Investment Advisors, New Enterprise Associates, Sternhill Partners, and Evercore Ventures. The company raised a total of $30M to date. VoxSurf Ltd, provider of multi-channel voicemail and messaging solutions, has secured $3.5M second round funding and appointed Mehran Mirahmadi as chief executive officer. Delta Partners led the funding with co-investment from BancBoston Capital. Critical Telecom Corp., has completed equity financing of approximately $12.7M ($18M CDN). The financing was led by VenGrowth Capital Partners Inc. with TELUS Ventures, Business Development Bank of Canada, and Crown Ventures Fund Inc. Fastmobile raised an additional $1.9M in Series A financing, bringing the total for the round to $5.9M. Caplin Systems Ltd. has accepted a third round of funding from its original investors, Financial Technology Ventures (FTVentures) and Elderstreet DrKC Ltd, bringing the total amount now invested by the two parties to $16M. Carrius Technologies raised $4.5M as follow-on to its Series A financing, which was completed in January, 2003. Chisholm Private Capital Partners and existing investors Star Ventures, Centerpoint Ventures and STARTech Early Ventures participated in this round. Shenick, which has released its diversifEye integrated network+application emulation and performance analysis test system, has closed $2.9M (2.5 million EUR) in a first round of private equity funding. The new investor is Trinity Venture Capital, part of the Reihill Venture Capital Group. Shenick has also received substantial grant funding from Enterprise Ireland. GlassHouse Technologies, Inc., a provider of independent storage services and consulting, received $7.1M in a Series C round of funding led by Kodiak Venture Partners.

Acquisitions -- EMC Corporation and Documentum announced a definitive agreement for EMC to acquire Documentum in a stock transaction valued at approximately $1.7 billion. Globix Corporation has entered into an agreement to acquire Aptegrity, a managed services provider (MSP) focused on web-based applications. NetsEdge Research learned that ActiVia has officially been incorporated into Stratacache, and registered under that name in the US.

Even more partnerships announced -- Speedera Networks and Omniture, adaptable, next-generation Web analytics, announced a partnership that will allow Speedera to sell Omniture's SiteCatalyst, as part of its SpeedSuite family of services. WARP Technology Holdings announced a strategic OEM partnership with ApplianSys Limited. ApplianSys will launch a new line of CACHEBOX appliances that integrate WARP's DataReactor technology. EMC and IBM announced an agreement that will extend the interoperability and compatibility for their respective storage systems, servers and software. Forum Systems has joined the RSA Secured Partner Program. The partnership provides a common foundation for secure XML Web services by integrating the Forum Sentry 1500 Series and RSA Keon digital certificate management software. iLumin Software Services, Inc. has worked closely with Network Appliance to tune iLumin Assentor Enterprise (message management solution) with Network Appliance SnapLock solutions ( WORM (write once, read many) solution for disk storage). BroadSpire, managed IT services provider, has expanded its ongoing relationship with Brighthand, information on handheld computers and smart phones. Keynote has joined the Siebel Alliance Program as a Platform Partner and has successfully validated the integration of Keynote Test Perspective 5.1, its hosted load testing service, and Siebel eBusiness Applications version 7.5. DeepNines Technologies and Eakins Open Systems (EOS) have signed a strategic reseller agreement that enables EOS to resell the Sleuth9 Security System. Loudeye Corp. signed a contract to provide song segments to Cellus USA, the largest retailer of premium mobile content in America.

Product news for the week -- Resonate Inc. is shipping the latest version of Resonate Central Dispatch with IBM AIX 5.1 & 5.2 32 bit platform. F5 Networks announced the new FirePass Controller, clientless solution for delivering secure and reliable remote access to corporate and desktop resources and applications. Extreme Networks participated in the  IPv6 Demonstration Collaborative Initiative in conjunction with the University of New Hampshire Interoperability Labs. And MessageGate, a provider of enterprise solutions for messaging security and compliance, is supporting Microsoft Exchange 2003 to deliver the ability for enterprises to block unwanted email from entering the corporate network and to enforce email compliance regulations.

Customer wins -- Children's Specialized Hospital, an affiliate member of the Robert Wood Johnson Health System, has implemented Netilla's Web-based platform to provide its administrative and support staff with secure remote access across its entire network. Children's Specialized is the largest pediatric rehabilitation hospital in the United States. France Telecom has installed a network point of presence (PoP) in Equinix's Singapore Internet Business Exchange (IBX) center to enhance the European carrier's connectivity with the leading networks of Asia. Louisiana State University (LSU) and the University of Miami have selected Allot's NetEnforcer AC-1000 to manage their network traffic and control P2P file sharing across their networks. Estafet, lastminute.com the largest travel site in Europe, has selected the WARP 2063e edge appliance to dramatically improve the performance of its travel and leisure Web site. Clark Country, Nevada School District has chosen Foundry to provide network infrastructure for a new high-speed Metro Area Network (MAN) for carrying voice, video and data traffic to each of its 289 schools. Pivia Software, Inc. announced that its Performance Server has been selected by Systemax, Inc., for the acceleration of both its intranet ERP systems and its e-commerce applications. Peribit's sequence reducers will increase the capacity of Dubai Municipality's (United Arab Emirates) WAN by as much as 300 % during peak periods, supporting finance, purchasing and electronic-mail and other operational applications.

Executives on the move -- EMC appoints former Compaq executive Howard Elias to executive vice president of new ventures. Millennial Net, hardware and software for self-organizing, wireless sensor networks, appointed Andy May as chief executive officer. Arik Ziv has joined Allot Communications as vice president of business development. Xiotech appointed Mike Gluck as executive vice president of sales and Bob Wilson as vice president of worldwide channel sales. Reflex Photonics, which is developing high-speed parallel optical devices for very-short-reach (VSR) applications, said it has named Marc Leroux as president and CEO. Fastmobile, mobile instant communication services, named Adam Sewall to the newly created position of senior vice president of operations. IP Dynamics announced the appointment of Leanne Brunette to vice president of North American sales. TeraCloud, storage resource management solutions, named Gary Tidd as executive vice president of sales and business development. Bret Hartman joins DataPower as vice president of technology solutions from Quadrasis. And, Bandspeed adds Bill Unger to its Board of Directors.

See links below for the complete text of those items mentioned above plus other news.

The InternetAcceleration newsletter and www.internetacceleration.com are produced by NetsEdge Research Group. For more information or to keep us updated, contact John Katsaros john@netsedgeonline.com.
   

Product News

Resonate Ships Latest Version of Resonate Central Dispatch for IBM AIX 5.1 & 5.2
Resonate Inc. is shipping the latest version of Resonate Central Dispatch with IBM AIX 5.1 & 5.2 32 bit platform and is available for the most common 100Mbit and Gigabit Network Interface Cards such as IBM 100base PCI and 5700 1Gbase-TX/SX family of adapters...more>

F5 Networks Eliminates the Need for IPSec VPNs for Secure Remote Access
F5 Networks announced the new FirePass Controller, clientless solution for delivering secure and reliable remote access to corporate and desktop resources and applications...more>

Extreme Networks to Participate In National Demonstration of Ipv6 Capabilities
Extreme Networks, Ethernet networking, participated in the  IPv6 Demonstration Collaborative Initiative in conjunction with the University of New Hampshire Interoperability Labs...more>

MessageGate Supports Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 to Protect Corporate Messaging Networks
MessageGate, a provider of enterprise solutions for messaging security and compliance, announced it is supporting Microsoft Exchange 2003 to deliver the ability for enterprises to block unwanted email from entering the corporate network and to enforce email compliance regulations...more>
  

Mergers & Acquisitions

Globix Reaches Agreement to Acquire Aptegrity
Globix Corporation, a provider of managed Internet infrastructure services, has entered into an agreement to acquire Aptegrity, a managed services provider (MSP) focused on web-based applications...more>

EMC Announces Plan to Acquire Documentum, Further Advancing Information Lifecycle Management Capabilities
EMC Corporation, information storage, and Documentum, enterprise content management software, announced a definitive agreement for EMC to acquire Documentum in a stock transaction valued at approximately $1.7 billion...more>

Stratacache Incorporates ActiVia Assets
NetsEdge Research learned that ActiVia has officially been incorporated into Stratacache, and registered under that name in the US...more>
 

Agreements & Partnerships

Speedera Teams up With Omniture to Add Integrated Web Analytics for Increased Business Intelligence
Speedera Networks and Omniture, adaptable, next-generation Web analytics, announced a partnership that will allow Speedera to sell Omniture's SiteCatalyst, as part of its SpeedSuite family of services...more>

WARP Signs Strategic OEM Partnership with ApplianSys to Deliver Advanced Caching Appliances in Europe
WARP Technology Holdings, Inc. announced a strategic OEM partnership with ApplianSys Limited. ApplianSys will launch a new line of CACHEBOX appliances that integrate WARP's DataReactor technology...more>

Forum Systems Joins the RSA Secured Partner Program
Forum Systems, Inc., Forum Sentry XML Web services security gateway, has joined the RSA Secured Partner Program. The partnership provides a common foundation for secure XML Web services by integrating the Forum Sentry 1500 Series and RSA Keon digital certificate management software...more>

iLumin Expands Relationship with Network Appliance
iLumin Software Services, Inc. has worked closely with Network Appliance  to tune iLumin Assentor Enterprise (message management solution) with Network Appliance SnapLock solutions ( WORM (write once, read many) solution for disk storage)...more>
  

Brighthand Teams with BroadSpire on Web Hosting Solutions, Fueling Business Growth for Popular PDA Community Site
BroadSpire, managed IT services provider, has expanded its ongoing relationship with Brighthand, information on handheld computers and smart phones. BroadSpire's solutions have contributed to the formation of new strategic partnerships between Brighthand and top-tier players like Palm, Microsoft, Sprint PCS and CNET...more>

Keynote Announces Siebel Validation, Joins Siebel Alliance Program
Keynote has joined the Siebel Alliance Program as a Platform Partner and has successfully validated the integration of Keynote Test Perspective 5.1, its hosted load testing service, and Siebel eBusiness Applications version 7.5...more>

DEEPNINES TECHNOLOGIES Signs Eakins Open Systems (EOS) as A STRATEGIC Reseller
DeepNines Technologies and Eakins Open Systems (EOS) have signed a strategic reseller agreement that enables EOS to resell the Sleuth9 Security System...more>

Loudeye Signs Contract to Provide Wireless Music Content for Cellus USA
Loudeye Corp. signed a contract to provide song segments to Cellus USA, the largest retailer of premium mobile content in America and the North American counterpart to Cellus Norway...more>

EMC and IBM Work to Extend Interoperability and Support for Customers 
EMC Corporation and IBM Corporation announced an agreement that will extend interoperability and compatibility for their respective storage systems, servers and software...more>

Corporate News

Extreme Networks Increases Commitment to The Metro Ethernet Forum
Extreme Networks announced the appointment of Craig Easley to the board of directors for the Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF is the industry group dedicated to accelerating the adoption of Ethernet in metro networks worldwide)...more>
 

Corporate News -- Funding News

Grande Communications Lands Commitment for $45 Million Equity Round
Grande Communications' investors have committed an additional $45 million in equity funding led by Whitney & Co., LLC, The Centennial Funds, and Prime New Ventures...more>

Everypath Closes $14.3 Million in Funding
Everypath, mobile task automation software and services, has closed venture financing of $14.3 million with new investor, Trident Capital, leading the round. Existing investors included Sevin Rosen Funds, US Venture Partners, AsiaTech Management, Focus Ventures, ArrowPath Venture Capital, Redwood Ventures, Amerindo and Raza Foundries with Bay Partners and Nippon Systems Development as new investors...more>

Bandspeed Receives $11.2M in Series C
Bandspeed, wireless LAN access point products, has raised $11.2 million in its Series C round of financing...more>

Boingo Wireless Completes Series B Financing
Boingo Wireless has completed its $10M Series B round of financing. The lead investor for the round was Mitsui & Co. Venture Partners with Infonet Services Corporation, Amerindo Investment Advisors, New Enterprise Associates, Sternhill Partners, and Evercore Ventures. The company raised a total of $30 million to date...more>

VoxSurf wins second-round funding and recruits new CEO
VoxSurf Ltd, provider of multi-channel voicemail and messaging solutions, has secured US$3.5m second round funding and appointed Mehran Mirahmadi as chief executive officer. Delta Partners led the funding with co-investment from BancBoston Capital...more>

Fastmobile Raises $1.9M
Fastmobile raised an additional $1.9 million in Series A financing, bringing the total for the round to $5.9 million...more>

Critical Telecom announces $12.7 million USD equity financing
Critical Telecom Corp., has completed equity financing of approximately $12.7 million ($18 million CDN). The financing was led by VenGrowth Capital Partners Inc. with TELUS Ventures, Business Development Bank of Canada, and Crown Ventures Fund Inc...more>

Caplin Attracts New Funding from FTVentures & Elderstreet
Caplin Systems Ltd. has accepted a third round of funding from its original investors, Financial Technology Ventures (FTVentures) and Elderstreet DrKC Ltd, bringing the total amount now invested by the two parties to $16 million...more>

Carrius Technologies Raises $4.5M Follow-On to its Series A Financing
Carrius Technologies has raised $4.5 million as follow-on to its Series A financing which was completed in January, 2003. Chisholm Private Capital Partners and existing investors Star Ventures, Centerpoint Ventures and STARTech Early Ventures participated in this round...more>

Shenick Secures $2.9 (2.5 M EUR) Million of Financing
Shenick, which has released its diversifEye integrated network+application emulation and performance analysis test system, has closed 2.5 M EUR in a first round of private equity funding. The new investor is Trinity Venture Capital, part of the Reihill Venture Capital Group. Shenick has also received substantial grant funding from Enterprise Ireland...more>

GlassHouse Technologies Receives $7.1 Million in C Round Financing
GlassHouse Technologies, Inc., a provider of independent storage services and consulting, received $7.1 million in a Series C round of funding led by Kodiak Venture Partners...more>
  

Corporate News -- Executives on the Move

EMC appoints former Compaq executive Howard Elias to executive vice president of new ventures...more>

Millennial Net, hardware and software for self-organizing, wireless sensor networks, appointed Andy May as chief executive officer...more>

Arik Ziv has joined Allot Communications as vice president of business development...more>

Xiotech appointed Mike Gluck as executive vice president of sales and Bob Wilson as vice president of worldwide channel sales...more>

Reflex Photonics, which is developing high-speed parallel optical devices for very-short-reach (VSR) applications, said it has named Marc Leroux as president and CEO...more>
  

Fastmobile, mobile instant communication services, named Adam Sewall to the newly created position of senior vice president of operations...more>

IP Dynamics announced the appointment of Leanne Brunette to vice president of North American sales...more>

TeraCloud, storage resource management solutions, named Gary Tidd as executive vice president of sales and business development...more>

Bret Hartman joins DataPower as vice president of technology solutions from Quadrasis...more>

Bandspeed adds Bill Unger to its Board of Directors...more>
 

Customer Announcements

Back to top