Vanguard Managed Solutions (VanguardMS) was a
limited liability company
A limited liability company (LLC for short) is the US-specific form of a private limited company. It is a business structure that can combine the pass-through taxation of a partnership or sole proprietorship with the limited liability of ...
(LLC) which specialized in monitoring live data networks from
network operations center
A network operations center (NOC, pronounced like the word ''knock''), also known as a "network management center", is one or more locations from which network monitoring and control, or network management, is exercised over a computer, teleco ...
s (NOCs) from 2001 to 2007. It began as Codex Corporation then was a division of
Motorola
Motorola, Inc. () was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, United States. After having lost $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009, the company split into two independent public companies, Motorol ...
, and then purchased by
Platinum Equity
Platinum Equity, LLC is an American private equity investment firm founded by Tom Gores in 1995. The firm focuses on leveraged buyout investments of established companies in the U.S., Europe and Asia.
History
Platinum Equity was founded in 199 ...
. Platinum merged the network monitoring business section to CompuCom in 2007, but retained the IP router business renamed to Vanguard Networks.
History
Codex Corporation was founded in July 1962 by James M. Cryer Jr. and Arthur Kohlenberg, who were director and chief scientist at a
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
area research division of
Melpar.
Originally the company was a government contractor headquartered in
Newton, Massachusetts
Newton is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is approximately west of downtown Boston. Newton resembles a patchwork of thirteen villages, without a city center. According to the 2020 U.S. Census, the population of Ne ...
.
In May 1967, Codex acquired Teldata, a small company led by Jerry Holsinger that was developing data communication products that would operate at data rates of 9600 bit per second compared to the 1200 bit per second rate of existing products.
Robert G. Gallager was hired as a consultant, and convinced the company to develop
quadrature amplitude modulation
Quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) is the name of a family of digital modulation methods and a related family of analog modulation methods widely used in modern telecommunications to transmit information. It conveys two analog message signa ...
techniques using two
sideband
In radio communications, a sideband is a band of frequencies higher than or lower than the carrier frequency, that are the result of the modulation process. The sidebands carry the information transmitted by the radio signal. The sidebands c ...
s instead of
single-sideband modulation. This technique was later refined by
Dave Forney
George David Forney Jr. (born March 6, 1940) is an American electrical engineer who made contributions in telecommunication system theory, specifically in coding theory and information theory.
Biography
Forney received the B.S.E. degree in elect ...
(hired in 1965) into a successful
modem
A modulator-demodulator or modem is a computer hardware device that converts data from a digital format into a format suitable for an analog transmission medium such as telephone or radio. A modem transmits data by Modulation#Digital modulati ...
(modulator and demodulator) product.
Within a few years it had about 20% of the market, which then was dominated by
American Telephone & Telegraph
AT&T Corporation, originally the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, is the subsidiary of AT&T Inc. that provides voice, video, data, and Internet telecommunications and professional services to businesses, consumers, and government agen ...
.
Codex had its
initial public offering
An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investme ...
in 1968.
By 1970 military spending was decreasing, so pure commercial products were developed.
However, the AE-96 model 9600 bit/s modems had problems in practice when manufacturing was scaled up.
Holsinger left in 1970 found another modem company: Intertel.
Founding president Cryer and chief scientist Kohlenberg both died in 1970, and financing was delayed. Art Carr took over in September 1970 and reduce staff to conserve cash.
A secondary public offering was held in 1972 to reduce debt and raise capital to expand.
Motorola
Motorola, Inc. () was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, United States. After having lost $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009, the company split into two independent public companies, Motorol ...
purchased Codex Corporation February 7, 1977.
That same month, chief primary competitor Milgo was purchased by British firm
Racal
Racal Electronics plc was a British electronics company that was founded in 1950.
Listed on the London Stock Exchange and once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index, Racal was a diversified company, offering products including voice loggers and ...
, after a take-over attempt by
Applied Digital Data Systems Applied Digital Data Systems (ADDS) was a supplier of video display computer terminals, founded in 1969 by Leeam Lowin and William J. Catacosinos. Lowin simultaneously founded Solid State Data Sciences (SSDS). SSDS was one of the first developers ...
.
In 1982, Carr became head of the Motorola Information Systems Group, which included other acquisitions such as
Four-Phase Systems
Four-Phase Systems was a computer company, founded by Lee Boysel and others, which built one of the earliest computers using semiconductor main memory and MOS LSI logic. The company was incorporated in February 1969 and had moderate commercial ...
in
California
California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...
.
The ISG division based in
Mansfield, Massachusetts
Mansfield is a town in Bristol County, Massachusetts, United States. As of the United States 2020 Census, the town population is 23,860. Mansfield is in the south-southwest suburbs of Boston and is also close to Providence, Rhode Island. The vill ...
sold their "Vanguard" series Motorola routers to enterprise and retail markets. The Vanguard series delivered transport capabilities of multiplexing voice, legacy protocols, and IP Routing over a single
Frame Relay
Frame Relay is a standardized wide area network (WAN) technology that specifies the physical and data link layers of digital telecommunications channels using a packet switching methodology. Originally designed for transport across Integrated Se ...
circuit using Annex G protocol derived from
X.25
X.25 is an ITU-T standard protocol suite for packet-switched data communication in wide area networks (WAN). It was originally defined by the International Telegraph and Telephone Consultative Committee (CCITT, now ITU-T) in a series of drafts ...
. The product's popularity led to its expansion of a
managed services
Managed services is the practice of outsourcing the responsibility for maintaining, and anticipating need for, a range of processes and functions, ostensibly for the purpose of improved operations and reduced budgetary expenditures through the re ...
unit where existing router customers were given the option to have their network monitored in real time for Frame Relay outages, and hardware failures. This service attracted customers who preferred a hands-off approach to maintaining their own networks, and not have to deal with contacting the
telecommunications company
A telephone company, also known as a telco, telephone service provider, or telecommunications operator, is a kind of communications service provider (CSP), more precisely a telecommunications service provider (TSP), that provides telecommunicat ...
for Frame Relay Circuit outages on their own.
In 1994, Motorola re-organized ISG and combined Codex with Universal Data Systems products. The new group was called the Internet and Networking Group, with John Lockitt remaining president and chief executive of Motorola Codex.
After the
dot-com bubble
The dot-com bubble (dot-com boom, tech bubble, or the Internet bubble) was a stock market bubble in the late 1990s, a period of massive growth in the use and adoption of the Internet.
Between 1995 and its peak in March 2000, the Nasdaq Compo ...
collapse in 2000, Motorola was forced to close or sell off some of their own business units.
Holding company
Platinum Equity
Platinum Equity, LLC is an American private equity investment firm founded by Tom Gores in 1995. The firm focuses on leveraged buyout investments of established companies in the U.S., Europe and Asia.
History
Platinum Equity was founded in 199 ...
purchased the ING division from Motorola.
The acquisition was announced in July 2001 and closed on September 4, 2001.
The
network management
Network management is the process of administering and managing computer networks. Services provided by this discipline include fault analysis, performance management, provisioning of networks and maintaining quality of service. Network managem ...
unit marketed
network monitoring
Network monitoring is the use of a system that constantly monitors a computer network for slow or failing components and that notifies the network administrator (via email, SMS or other alarms) in case of outages or other trouble. Network monitori ...
products and was purchased in 2007 by
Court Square Capital Partners
Court Square Capital Partners is a private equity firm focused on leveraged buyout transactions. Court Square was originally a captive private equity firm within Citigroup known as Citigroup Venture Capital Equity Partners. Court Square's inve ...
.
Court Square merged the products into those of the CompuCom Systems (based in
Dallas, Texas
Dallas () is the third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 million people. It is the largest city in and seat of Dallas County ...
), which was also acquired at the same time.
The Multi-service
router unit remained with Platinum Equity. The "VanguardMS" brand name was changed to Vanguard Networks.
In February 2013 the brand was purchased by Raymar Information Technology.
At that time, Raymar was located in
Sacramento, California
)
, image_map = Sacramento County California Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Sacramento Highlighted.svg
, mapsize = 250x200px
, map_caption = Location within Sacramento ...
, and Vanguard continued to operate in
Foxboro, Massachusetts
Foxborough is a town in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States, about southwest of Boston, northeast of Providence, Rhode Island and about northwest of Cape Cod. Foxborough is part of the Greater Boston area. The population was 18,618 a ...
.
References
{{Reflist, 2
Motorola