Bay Networks, Inc., was a network hardware vendor formed through the merger of

Santa Clara, California Santa Clara ( ; Spanish language, Spanish for "Clare of Assisi, Saint Clare") is a city in Santa Clara County, California. The city's population was 127,647 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the List of cities and towns i ...

, based SynOptics Communications and Billerica, Massachusetts based Wellfleet Communications on July 6, 1994. SynOptics was an important early innovator of

Ethernet Ethernet ( ) is a family of wired computer networking technologies commonly used in local area networks (LAN), metropolitan area networks (MAN) and wide area networks (WAN). It was commercially introduced in 1980 and first standardized in 198 ...

products, having developed a pre-standard twisted pair 10 Mbit/s Ethernet product and a modular Ethernet hub product that dominated the enterprise networking market. Wellfleet was an important competitor to

Cisco Systems Cisco Systems, Inc. (using the trademark Cisco) is an American multinational corporation, multinational digital communications technology conglomerate (company), conglomerate corporation headquartered in San Jose, California. Cisco develops, m ...

in the router market, ultimately commanding up to a 20% market share of the network router business worldwide. The combined company was renamed Bay Networks, as SynOptics was based in the

San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a List of regions of California, region of California surrounding and including San Francisco Bay, and anchored by the cities of Oakland, San Francisco, and San Jose, California, S ...

and Wellfleet in

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, nearby to

Massachusetts Bay Massachusetts Bay is a bay on the Gulf of Maine that forms part of the central coastline of Massachusetts. Description The bay extends from Cape Ann on the north to Plymouth Harbor on the south, a distance of about . Its northern and sout ...

Acquisitions

Bay Networks expanded its product line both through internal development and acquisition, acquiring the following companies during the course of its existence: * Centillion Networks, Inc. (May, 1995) – Provided

Asynchronous Transfer Mode Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) is a telecommunications standard defined by the American National Standards Institute and International Telecommunication Union Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T, formerly CCITT) for digital trans ...

switching and

Token Ring Token Ring is a Physical layer, physical and data link layer computer networking technology used to build local area networks. It was introduced by IBM in 1984, and standardized in 1989 as IEEE Standards Association, IEEE 802.5. It uses a sp ...

technology. * Xylogics, Inc. (December, 1995) – Remote access technologies. * Performance Technology (March, 1996) – LAN-to-WAN access technology. * ARMON Networking, Ltd. (July, 1996) – RMON and RMON2 network management technology. * LANcity Corporation (October, 1996) – Cable modem technology. * Penril Datability Networks (November, 1996) – Dial-up modems and remote access products based on Digital Signal Processing technology. * NetICs, Inc. (December, 1996) – ASIC-based Fast Ethernet switching technology. * ISOTRO Network Management, Inc. (April, 1997) – DNS and DHCP technologies. * Rapid City Communications (June, 1997) – Gigabit Ethernet switching and routing technology. * New Oak Communications (January, 1998) – Provided VPN technology to Bay Networks product line. * Netsation Corp. (February, 1998) – Technology was used to augment Bay Networks Optivity network management system. * NetServe

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(July, 1998) – VoIPX technology

Acquisition by Nortel

Bay Networks was acquired by Northern Telecom in June 1998 for

US$ The United States dollar (Currency symbol, symbol: Dollar sign, $; ISO 4217, currency code: USD) is the official currency of the United States and International use of the U.S. dollar, several other countries. The Coinage Act of 1792 introdu ...

9.1 billion, broadening Nortel's reach from its traditional carrier customer base into enterprise data networking. Reflective of this expanded product set and market, Nortel renamed itself Nortel Networks after the merger. In December 2009, as part of its bankruptcy proceedings, Nortel sold its Enterprise Networking equipment and software business to

Avaya Avaya LLC(), formerly Avaya Inc., is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Morristown, New Jersey, that provides cloud communications and workstream collaboration services. The company's platform includes unified commun ...

. The sale included a few remaining Bay Networks products that were still active in

Nortel Nortel Networks Corporation (Nortel), formerly Northern Telecom Limited, was a Canadian Multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications and data networking equipment manufacturer headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario. It was founded in ...

's portfolio at the time of the sale, such as the Ethernet Switch 450 and Backbone Concentrator Node (BCN) router. The Bay Networks product

Small office/home office Small office/home office (or single office/home office; sometimes short SOHO) refers to the category of business or cottage industry that involves from 1 to 1000 workers. In New Zealand, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBI ...

line survives to this day as the

Netgear Netgear, Inc. (stylized as NETGEAR in all caps), is an American computer networking company based in San Jose, California, with offices in about 22 other countries. It produces networking hardware for consumers, businesses, and service provide ...

products that are widely sold by electronics retailers. Example products include Gigabit Ethernet switches, cable modems, print servers, and similar inexpensive, consumer-oriented networking equipment. Bay Networks had originally launched Netgear as a product line/division in January 1996, but the product line was not core to the newly formed Nortel Networks operations and so was spun out as a standalone company in September 1999.

References

External links

* {{Authority control Nortel 1994 establishments in Massachusetts 1998 disestablishments in Massachusetts American companies established in 1994 American companies disestablished in 1998 Companies based in Billerica, Massachusetts Companies based in Santa Clara, California Computer companies established in 1994 Computer companies disestablished in 1998 Defunct computer companies of the United States Networking hardware companies Defunct computer hardware companies Defunct networking companies Netgear