Stratus Technologies, Inc. is a major producer of
fault tolerant
Fault tolerance is the property that enables a system to continue operating properly in the event of the failure of one or more faults within some of its components. If its operating quality decreases at all, the decrease is proportional to the ...
computer servers and software. The company was founded in 1980 as Stratus Computer, Inc. in
Natick, Massachusetts
Natick ( ) is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is near the center of the MetroWest region of Massachusetts, with a population of 37,006 at the 2020 census. west of Boston, Natick is part of the Greater Boston area. ...
, and adopted its present name in 1999. The current CEO and president is Dave Laurello. Stratus Technologies, Inc. is a privately held company, owned solely by
Siris Capital Group Siris may refer to:
Geography
*Siris (Magna Graecia), an ancient city in southern Italy
*Serres, a city in Macedonia called Siris by the Ancient Greek historian Herodotus
*Siris, Sardinia, an Italian commune
*Sinni (river) (Siris in Latin), Italy
* ...
. The parent company, Stratus Technologies Bermuda Holdings, Ltd., is incorporated in Bermuda.
Stratus Computer was a Marlborough, Massachusetts, based producer of
fault tolerant
Fault tolerance is the property that enables a system to continue operating properly in the event of the failure of one or more faults within some of its components. If its operating quality decreases at all, the decrease is proportional to the ...
minicomputer
A minicomputer, or colloquially mini, is a class of smaller general purpose computers that developed in the mid-1960s and sold at a much lower price than mainframe and mid-size computers from IBM and its direct competitors. In a 1970 survey, ...
s. It competed with computers from
Tandem Computers
Tandem Computers, Inc. was the dominant manufacturer of fault-tolerant computer systems for Automated teller machine, ATM networks, banks, stock exchanges, telephone switching centers, and other similar commercial transaction processing applicati ...
and to a lesser extent
Digital Equipment Corporation
Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC ), using the trademark Digital, was a major American company in the computer industry from the 1960s to the 1990s. The company was co-founded by Ken Olsen and Harlan Anderson in 1957. Olsen was president unt ...
's
VAX
VAX (an acronym for Virtual Address eXtension) is a series of computers featuring a 32-bit instruction set architecture (ISA) and virtual memory that was developed and sold by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) in the late 20th century. The V ...
.
Starting in 1983, its computers were resold worldwide by
Olivetti
Olivetti S.p.A. is an Italian manufacturer of computers, tablets, smartphones, printers and other such business products as calculators and fax machines. Headquartered in Ivrea, in the Metropolitan City of Turin, the company has been part of ...
under the CPS/32 ("Continuous Processing System") brand. Then, from 1985 to 1993, its computers were resold by
IBM under the IBM System/88 brand.
The company is now based in
Maynard, Massachusetts
Maynard is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. The town is located 22 miles west of Boston, in the MetroWest and Greater Boston region of Massachusetts and borders Acton, Concord, Stow and Sudbury. The town's population w ...
.
History
Stratus shipped its first computer in February 1982, 21 months after its founding. The customer was the West Lynn Creamery, located in nearby
Lynn, Massachusetts
Lynn is the eighth-largest municipality in Massachusetts and the largest city in Essex County. Situated on the Atlantic Ocean, north of the Boston city line at Suffolk Downs, Lynn is part of Greater Boston's urban inner core. Settled by E ...
.
The company's traditional markets have been financial services companies such as banks and
stock exchange
A stock exchange, securities exchange, or bourse is an exchange where stockbrokers and traders can buy and sell securities, such as shares of stock, bonds and other financial instruments. Stock exchanges may also provide facilities for th ...
s. Beginning in the 1990s, the company moved into the telecommunications industry, particularly in the area of network management and custom services, with the result that its telecommunications revenues surpassed those from enterprise computing. This led to a
buyout
In finance, a buyout is an investment transaction by which the ownership equity of a company, or a majority share of the stock of the company is acquired. The acquiror thereby "buys out" the present equity holders of the target company. A buyout ...
of the company by
Ascend Communications
Ascend Communications was an Alameda, California-based manufacturer of communications equipment that was later purchased by Lucent Technologies in 1999.
Ascend Communications was founded in 1988 and taken public in 1994. Initial investors includ ...
in 1998 (later acquired by
Lucent Technologies
Lucent Technologies, Inc. was an American multinational telecommunications equipment company headquartered in Murray Hill, New Jersey. It was established on September 30, 1996, through the divestiture of the former AT&T Technologies business u ...
).
The enterprise server portion of the business was of little interest to Ascend and that portion was spun off in a
management buyout
A management buyout (MBO) is a form of acquisition in which a company's existing managers acquire a large part, or all, of the company, whether from a parent company or individual. Management-, and/or leveraged buyout became noted phenomena of 1 ...
in 1999, with funding from international investment firm,
Investcorp
Investcorp is a global manager of alternative investment products, for private and institutional clients. Founded in Bahrain in 1982, the firm has offices in United States, United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, India, China, ...
. The company was named Stratus Technologies, Inc.
In the second quarter of 2002, Lucent sold the telecom product lines that originally came from Stratus to
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 ...
, a buyout firm based in Los Angeles. That unit was eventually named Cemprus LLC. Stratus purchased Cemprus in 2003. It is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Stratus. This acquisition gave Stratus the SS7 signaling software for phone networks and intelligent gateway software so that traditional and IP voice equipment are able to communicate. This software can be used to support higher-level telephony applications such as calling-card and toll free phone number services.
In 2006, Stratus purchased Emergent Network Solutions of Allen, Texas. Stratus sold off Emergent in 2009, and Emergent is now known a
Stratus Telecommunications The two companies are now separate entities. One is not the parent of the other. On July 16, 2010, as a reverse merger between
YMax and VocalTec - all of the Stratus Telecommunications technologies are owned by
VocalTec
VocalTec Communications Inc. is an Israeli telecom equipment provider. The company was founded in 1985 by Alon Cohen and Lior Haramaty, who patented the first Voice over IP audio transceiver. VocalTec has supplied major customers such as Deuts ...
.
In 2012, Stratus acquired the assets, products, services, and intellectual property of
Marathon Technologies along with its customer base and channel-partner network.
Now privately held, Stratus Technologies, Inc. was acquired by
Siris Capital Group Siris may refer to:
Geography
*Siris (Magna Graecia), an ancient city in southern Italy
*Serres, a city in Macedonia called Siris by the Ancient Greek historian Herodotus
*Siris, Sardinia, an Italian commune
*Sinni (river) (Siris in Latin), Italy
* ...
on April 28, 2014.
[''http://www.stratus.com/About/News/2014/Siris-and-Stratus-Close''] On 29 June 2022 Smart Global Holdings announced the acquisition of Stratus from Sirus for $225m.
Company press release
/ref>
Products and customers
Its legacy product line was originally based on Motorola
Motorola, Inc. () was an American Multinational corporation, 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 p ...
MC68000
The Motorola 68000 (sometimes shortened to Motorola 68k or m68k and usually pronounced "sixty-eight-thousand") is a 16/32-bit complex instruction set computer (CISC) microprocessor, introduced in 1979 by Motorola Semiconductor Products Sector ...
processors (FT and XA series), and then migrated to Intel i860
The Intel i860 (also known as 80860) is a RISC microprocessor design introduced by Intel in 1989. It is one of Intel's first attempts at an entirely new, high-end instruction set architecture since the failed Intel iAPX 432 from the beginning of ...
processors (XA/R series), then to Hewlett-Packard
The Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard ( ) or HP, was an American multinational information technology company headquartered in Palo Alto, California. HP developed and provided a wide variety of hardware components ...
's PA-RISC
PA-RISC is an instruction set architecture (ISA) developed by Hewlett-Packard. As the name implies, it is a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) architecture, where the PA stands for Precision Architecture. The design is also referred to as ...
processors (Continuum series), and finally to Intel Xeon
Xeon ( ) is a brand of x86 microprocessors designed, manufactured, and marketed by Intel, targeted at the non-consumer workstation, server, and embedded system markets. It was introduced in June 1998. Xeon processors are based on the same arc ...
processors (V Series). That line runs the VOS operating system, which originally had many features inspired by or derived from Multics
Multics ("Multiplexed Information and Computing Service") is an influential early time-sharing operating system based on the concept of a single-level memory.Dennis M. Ritchie, "The Evolution of the Unix Time-sharing System", Communications of t ...
. Other operating systems supported on the legacy platforms (XA/R, Jetta / Continuum)—HP-UX
HP-UX (from "Hewlett Packard Unix") is Hewlett Packard Enterprise's proprietary implementation of the Unix operating system, based on Unix System V (initially System III) and first released in 1984. Current versions support HPE Integrity Ser ...
and a home-grown UNIX product called FTX (Fault-Tolerant UNIX)—are supported but no longer actively sold.
In June 2002, Stratus introduced the ftServer line of Intel-based servers, running Microsoft Windows 2000 and higher. The Stratus ftServer line sold today supports Windows 2000, 2003 and 2008, as well as Red Hat Enterprise Linux. The company sells models of ftServer designated as entry-level, mid-range and enterprise-class fault tolerant servers. The mid-range and enterprise ftServer systems also run VMware vSphere virtualization software.
The company began offering Stratus Avance software in June 2008, a high availability product with virtualization built in. Avance runs on two general-purpose x86 servers and allows deployment of applications across high-availability virtual machines, freeing up existing x86 servers. The two servers comprising the Avance high-availability platform may be separated by up to three miles for purposes of disaster recovery and business continuity. Avance is intended to serve small-to-medium size businesses' need for affordable and simple high availability and virtualization.
Stratus has a large presence in Maynard, Massachusetts
Maynard is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. The town is located 22 miles west of Boston, in the MetroWest and Greater Boston region of Massachusetts and borders Acton, Concord, Stow and Sudbury. The town's population w ...
, its U.S. headquarters, and in Phoenix
Phoenix most often refers to:
* Phoenix (mythology), a legendary bird from ancient Greek folklore
* Phoenix, Arizona, a city in the United States
Phoenix may also refer to:
Mythology
Greek mythological figures
* Phoenix (son of Amyntor), a ...
, Arizona
Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a state in the Southwestern United States. It is the 6th largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona is part of the Fou ...
, as well as several worldwide offices, in locations such as the UK, the Netherlands
)
, anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau")
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, subdivision_type = Sovereign state
, subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands
, established_title = Before independence
, established_date = Spanish Netherl ...
, South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...
, France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
, Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
, Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...
, Spain
, image_flag = Bandera de España.svg
, image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg
, national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond")
, national_anthem = (English: "Royal March")
, i ...
, Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
, New Zealand
New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...
, Singapore
Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...
, Hong Kong
Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...
, China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
and Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
.
The company has a vast customer base, but popular types of its customers include banks and credit unions, emergency response centers (such as 911 in the USA), police departments, fire departments, hospitals, clinics, governments, credit card companies, stock exchanges, telcos/phone companies and Internet providers.
References
{{reflist
External links
Stratus company homepage
Companies based in Maynard, Massachusetts
Computer companies of the United States
Unix variants
Fault-tolerant computer systems
Private equity portfolio companies