Proteon, Inc. was a pioneering designer and manufacturer

computer network A computer network is a set of computers sharing resources located on or provided by network nodes. The computers use common communication protocols over digital interconnections to communicate with each other. These interconnections are ...

equipment based in

Westborough, Massachusetts Westborough is a town in Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 21,567 at the 2020 Census, in over 7,000 households. Incorporated in 1717, the town is governed under the New England open town meeting system, headed ...

. Proteon created the first commercial

Token Ring Token Ring network IBM hermaphroditic connector with locking clip. Screen contacts are prominently visible, gold-plated signal contacts less so. Token Ring is a computer networking technology used to build local area networks. It was introduc ...

products and created the first commercially available multiprotocol

Internet router A router is a networking device that forwards data packets between computer networks. Routers perform the traffic directing functions between networks and on the global Internet. Data sent through a network, such as a web page or email, is ...

as well as the

OSPF Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) is a routing protocol for Internet Protocol (IP) networks. It uses a link state routing (LSR) algorithm and falls into the group of interior gateway protocols (IGPs), operating within a single autonomous syst ...

routing protocol.

History

Proteon designed and manufactured of some of the earliest commercial

Local Area Network A local area network (LAN) is a computer network that interconnects computers within a limited area such as a residence, school, laboratory, university campus or office building. By contrast, a wide area network (WAN) not only covers a larger ...

and

TCP/IP The Internet protocol suite, commonly known as TCP/IP, is a framework for organizing the set of communication protocols used in the Internet and similar computer networks according to functional criteria. The foundational protocols in the suit ...

Internet Router products. Although founded in 1972 by Howard Salwen as communications consulting firm, Proteon became a manufacturer when they produced the first commercial Token Ring network interfaces and media access units in conjunction with

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...

. In 1981, they released the 10Mbit/sec Pronet-10 Token Ring network. and evolved the speeds through 16 MBit/sec, 80 Mbit/sec and 100 Mbit/sec. IBM released a competing Token Ring system in 1984. In 1986, Proteon released the first commercially available multi-protocol router, the p4200, based on the MIT multi-protocol router, using code developed by

Noel Chiappa Joseph Noel Chiappa is a retired researcher who worked in the area of information systems architecture and software, principally computer networks. Education Chiappa attended Saltus Grammar School in Bermuda, and Phillips Academy and MIT in th ...

. Proteon's router products made them one of the key companies producing products to support the growing

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

, among rivals such as

Cisco Cisco Systems, Inc., commonly known as Cisco, is an American-based multinational digital communications technology conglomerate corporation headquartered in San Jose, California. Cisco develops, manufactures, and sells networking hardware, ...

and

Wellfleet Communications Wellfleet Communications was an Internet Router (computing), router company founded in 1986 by Paul Severino, Bill Seifert, Steven Willis and David Rowe based in Bedford, Massachusetts, and later Billerica, Massachusetts. In an attempt to more e ...

. Proteon went public in 1991, issuing 3.1 million shares. Proteon was renamed and relaunched as OpenROUTE Networks in 1998. OpenRoute Networks merged into Netrix in 1999. The combined company was rebranded as NX Networks. which was acquired by NSGDatacom in 2002, who dropped the NX Networks name in favor of Netrix.

References

External links

* {{Portal bar, Companies, Internet Defunct networking companies Networking companies of the United States Companies based in Westborough, Massachusetts Defunct companies based in Massachusetts 1991 initial public offerings Networking hardware companies