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Dominating The Technical Industry F5 Networks Acquired Nginx For $670 Million

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I think a major part of success depends on the time you start it. For example, when the internet was gradually grasping our world, then start-ups are now a part of the unicorn club. Similarly, the businesses which started growing just before the dot-com boom mostly vanished in no time. So, time is a major factor.

But, exceptions always happen in the business world. Everything is uncertain here. F5 Networks is a technology company that was founded in 1996. Jeff Hussey founded the company and then John McAdam joined him shortly. Both stepped down after serving the company for a long time. F5 Networks is a Seattle based company.

What is F5 Networks?

The term “technical” is a very wide domain. So, what are the specific products of F5 Networks? The company is mainly thriving in the networking area since the beginning. F5 Networks mainly provides ADN (application delivery networking).

ADN uses a series of technologies which when incorporated together secures the network, provides visibility and acceleration. Initially, the company was focused on load-balancing products (distributed network). But, Jeff modified and expanded the company with time. It also includes services like DDoS defense.

About the Founder

Jeff Hussey has a Bachelor’s degree in Finance from Seattle Pacific University. He also went to the University of Washington for acquiring his MBA degree. After he graduated in 1991, he joined Pacific Comlink in 1993. He served as the President of the company for a couple of years and then he shifted to Alexander Hutton.

Jeff Hussey
Image Source : Google

In 1996, Jeff founded F5 Networks and served as the CEO of the company for six years. But, this wasn’t the end of his passion. In 2012, Jeff started another start-up in the same area. And, he founded the company, Tempered Networks in August 2014.

John McAdam

John McAdam joined the company in 2012 as the President and CEO. He left the company in 2015. Under John’s leadership, the company expanded and made big acquisitions.

John went to the University of Glasgow and studied Computer Science. He served as the Board Member of Apptio and Tableau Software before joining F5 Networks. From 2015, John is a Board Member at Nutanix as well. Even after John resigned from the company in 2015, he still serves as the Board Member of F5.

Initial Stage of F5 Networks

When Jeff thought of starting a tech start-up, he was more inclined towards the economic part than the part where technology was implemented. Well, his main motive was to invest in something that would become a billion-dollar company someday.

In the meantime, some developers in Seattle started working on virtual reality. This idea was much ahead of the time and unfortunately, the serves didn’t support it. But, they didn’t give up and rather came up with an algorithm for load balancing. Jeff saw potential in this product and bought it from them.

This is how Jeff founded F5 Networks in 1996 and launched its first product in 1997 using that algorithm.

Picking up the momentum

After a couple of years, when the dot-com burst hit the market, it didn’t seem to affect F5 much. Because of the uniqueness of F5 was much advanced and it helped the company to survive the big crisis. In 1999, F5 Networks was listed on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange.

It was around 2000 when Jeff decided to hire an experienced tech geek for the company. And, John was perfect for the job. F5 Networks offered him the position of the President when he working for IBM. After he joined the company, John predicted the loss it might suffer due to the boom. So, next year he along with his tech team wrote a whole new algorithm for a new market.

Success and Acquisitions

Eventually, F5 Networks started provided security services as well. And, after the next couple of years, it started making huge profits. In 2003, the company acquired uRoam for $25 million. In 2007, the company made one of the biggest acquisitions in its history for $210 million.

For two consecutive years, the company’s name came under the section of Fortune’s 100 Fastest-Growing Companies. The headquarters of F5 Networks was shifted to the F5 Tower in 2017. The latest news F5 is discussing about is the acquisition of Shape Security. F5 Networks has more than 4,000 employees.

Verizon Wireless

Verizon – How Mergers Helped this Company Become the Largest Wireless Service Provider in America

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Headquartered in New York, Verizon Communications Inc. is a multinational company that delivers broadband and wireless communications services. They are a global leader in the field of communications and operates America’s largest wireless network, with over 107 million connections. They have also branched into other areas and now provides services in information and entertainment sectors, working with a fiber-optic network.

Not only do they have a strong presence in the US, they also operate worldwide with customers in over 150 countries. Notably, they provide services to all of the companies listed in the Fortune 500. Verizon is a Dow 30 company, making more than $106.6 billion in revenues with over 195,000 employees. Here’s a look at their success story and what makes them so special.

About the Company

Bell Atlantic Corp and GTE Corp merged in 2000 to form Verizon, which is incorporated in Delaware. The company turned public and started trading on the New York Stock Exchange as VZ in July of the same year. Ten years later, the company switched to NASDAQ under the same ticker name VZ.

The symbols signify speed and the word, veritas meaning reliability, credited to being the origin of the company name. Though Verizon is a 21st-century company, the companies, and mergers that made its formation possible go back many years.

Their roots may be traced to the early beginnings of the telephone industry in the late 19th century. The telephone industry was given more definition with the signing of the Telecommunications Act in 1996, making it a competitive marketplace.

Merging and Surging Ahead

Some of the largest mergers in US business history created Verizon, with the first one being the joining of Bell Atlantic and GTE in 1998. This move led to their headquarters being shifted from Stamford to Texas. Both these companies had grown side by side, expanding, growing and acquiring other companies.

Each of them commanded substantial market share and were successful in their own right. Before the merger, GTE was one of the largest communications company in the world, ending 1999 with an annual turnover exceeding $25 billion. They had built over 35 million access lines throughout the US, Dominican Republic, and Canada. GTE also had a foothold in the wireless industry, with over 7.1 million customers and 72.5 million potential customers.

In comparison, Bell Atlantic was an even larger company with revenues crossing $33 billion. They served 43 million access lines, along with 22 million houses and over 2 million businesses. They managed the world’s most successful wireless communication companies, with over 7.7 million customers and customers in Latin America and Europe.

Furthermore, they were the world’s largest directory publisher. Hence, it comes as no surprise that the merger came in at over $52 billion. The two companies decided to merge to create a company that would become the telecommunication industry’s giants. It took two years to close, following reviews and approvals from both sides and the Federal Communications Commission.

Starting Verizon Wireless

Around the same time, Bell Atlantic and Vodafone started a new wireless business combining both their wireless assets. The joint venture received approval in six months and the new brand launched in 2000, followed by Verizon Wireless in April. Verizon held the majority share of 55% in Verizon Wireless, thereby controlling it. 

During the beginning, leaders from both Bell and GTE shared management responsibility with GTE CEO Charles Lee becoming Verizon’s co-CEO, along with Ivan Seidenberg. Two years later, in 2002, Lee stepped down, while Seidenberg hung his boots in 2011, being succeeded by Lowell C. McAdam. Lowell served as Verizon’s President and Verizon Wireless’s CEO before becoming CEO.

After acquiring Alltel in 2009, Verizon Wireless turned into the largest wireless company in the U.S. Wireless revenue alone is over $92 billion as of 2016, making them the most successful wireless service provider in the US. Then, in 2014, Verizon made its largest investment by acquiring Vodafone’s 45% stake in Verizon Wireless for $130 billion. This transaction gave them full ownership over the American wireless industry, making them a global leader. With over 177,700 employees and an annual turnover exceeding $132 billion, the company looks all set to have a bright future.

Sennheiser Electronic: A Revolutionary Change in the World of Audio

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It is no wonder that earphones and wireless headsets have become such an integral part of our lives. Whether travelling on public transport and trying to avoid the unwanted noise or taking a long walk all alone, we always manage to carry one of these viable inventions. But with time we all expect some advancement of products especially when it comes down to gadgets.

Sennheiser Electronic is one such company which specializes in the production of far-ranging audio streaming products with latest designs and flawless modifications. The company mainly focuses on producing headphones, earphones, microphones and other such accessories which are useful to people on both personal and professional level.

The glorious past of the company

Sennheiser Electronics was founded in 1945 by Fritz Sennheiser, and with only seven engineers the company created their first product, a tube voltmeter. Initially, the name of the company was Labor W, where W was the shortened form for Wennebostel, the village, where they formed the laboratory and built their first product. In 1946, the company started producing microphones with DM 1, followed by developing microphones with DM 2 in 1947. The company manufactured their first geophysical equipment in 1949, along with geophones and the first noise compensated microphone.

Fritz Sennheiser
Image Source: thetimes.co.uk

In 1950, the company, then known as Lab W, manufactured their first microphone transformers, mixing amplifiers and pre-amplifiers. The company excelled in designing their products in such a way that it attracted audience throughout the world. And by the time their products were in huge demand, and they started focusing on miniaturization which led to the designing of magnetic miniature headphones in 1952. In 1953, they started building miniature transformers used in hearing aid which was followed by the launching of classic MD 21 microphone. By the end of the first decade since the establishment of Lab W, they created the first interference tube microphone for the television industry and also hired 250 employees. This was just the stepping stone towards something way bigger and innovative!

In the next decade, the MD 83 microphone was built with a reversible transducer that was used as both microphone and loudspeaker. In 1956, they invented a wireless system in association with German Broadcaster NDR. And it was in 1958 that the company was renamed as Sennheiser Electronic from Labor W. In the following years the company built stereo microphones, first answering machine, baby monitor and active loudspeakers.

In 1968 the company built the world’s first open headphones which marked one of the huge successes in the history of Sennheiser Electronics. In 1973, the company got transformed into a limited partnership (KG). The company also built a lot of accessories for wireless transmission and started using infrared technologies from 1975. Till date, the company has developed innumerable technologies to enhance the level of the sound system, especially, the new shotgun microphones which have truly set some new standards in the world of audio transmission.

Achievements of Sennheiser Electronic

Well, the exceptional achievements of the company are truly phenomenal. Starting from a small group of seven engineers to producing more than 10 million units of a product to quench the need of customers is a real success indeed!

Though it is next to impossible to mention all the achievements of Sennheiser Electronics because they are uncountable, here are a few majestic triumphs that are worth mentioning:

• In 1959, Fritz Sennheiser was made an honorary professor of Hanover Technical University.

• In 1977, the company formed a second production plant Burgdorf.

• In 1982, the company was handed over by Fritz Sennheiser to his son Jörg Sennheiser.

• In 1987, Fritz Sennheiser received a prestigious award from 59th Academy Awards for manufacturing MKH 816 shotgun microphone.

• In 1988, the foundation of Sennheiser France took place followed by Sennheiser UK in 1990, Sennheiser Electronic Corporation, USA, Sennheiser Canada and Sennheiser Belux in 1991.

• In 1990, a third production plant was built in Tullamore, Ireland. This is a very vivid example of how rapidly the company was growing.

• In 1991, they launched the best headphones in the entire world, the electrostatic Orpheus.

• In the following years founding of Sennheiser Asia (1992), Sennheiser Nederland (1995) and Sennheiser Mexico (1995) took place.

• In 1996, the company was awarded Emmy Award for reaching the pinnacle in wireless technology. The company was also transformed into a private limited company in this year (GmbH & Co. KG).

• In 1997, the second unit of R&D was opened in Burbank, California.

• In 1999, Georg Neumann GmbH was awarded Technical Grammy of The National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences and the company received German Industry Innovation Award for the optical microphone.

• In 2000, the company built its fourth production plant in Albuquerque, USA.

• In 2015, to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the company, it opened its innovation campus, which has the most modern technologies in the entire world of communication technology.

These are just a few grand achievements among the arsenal of glories it received from the entire world.

The moral foundation of the company

Sennheiser believes in strong passion, curiosity, dedication, and a clear vision to mould a perfect tomorrow. They believe in fulfilling the need of their customers, which truly is the most important hack to grow an industry. Ever since the company has been founded, it has only witnessed the sweet success or that is what it appears to be. The company believes in sustainability, cooperative work, maintaining ethics, and respecting human dignity. And, their strong belief and dedication, have helped them reach where they are today, to set a perfect example of a grandiose foundation.

Sonos : The Pioneer in Wireless Smart Speakers

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Handsfree, smart speaker, music streaming services, so much has been changed in the past more than a decade. To be precise, there were no such technologies over 17 years ago, and people were happy detangling the mesh of cables for music. But there was a group of visionaries, that wanted to bring the change and free people from the trap of cables to provide them with the best sound experience.

The American consumer electronics company, Sonos, was founded by four business partners John MacFarlane, Craig Shelburne, Tom Cullen, and Trung Mai, in 2002. Except for John, all the other three co-founders belonged to Santa Barbara, and John moved to the city to pursue a PhD degree from California-Santa Barbara in 1990.

sonos
Image Source: digitalmusicnews.com

At the same time, the Internet was at its initial stage and was not as popular as it is today. At that time, only fewer than 16 million U.S. households had high-speed dial-up broadband, and America Online was the top internet provider in the U.S. Like other technical persons, John was also sure about the future success and scope of the internet. This way, along with Craig Shelburne, Tom Cullen, and Trung Mai, John decided to start Software.com, and after running it for a decade, they sold the company to Phone.com.

After selling the company, the next thing the visionaries had to do was to think of a new business idea. For a few months of brainstorming, John presented a plan to start a business of building devices which would enable local-area networks for aeroplanes. But the other three partners were not convinced. Again four of them started looking for that out-of-the-box idea, that would be innovative and unique.

At last, the four coincided on a single topic, i.e. music. Today, music streaming services, as well as wireless speakers and headphones, are quite common, but at that time, the concept of the wireless system had not even born. In fact, the music systems came with a mesh of cables, and when anyone wanted to connect the speakers in the different rooms, through a same music system, there was no choice other than drilling their walls to pass the wires through it.

So this was it. The idea was to create a music system, that could play the same music in different rooms without connecting any wires using the internet. But since there was no such existing technology at that time, despite being a unique idea, it did not seem feasible, too. Still, since all the four partners liked the idea, they all started working on the same.

Since the four had been successful entrepreneurs in the past, they had connections and the skills to draw the investments. They also started employing some skilled people for the manufacturing of their dream project. Initially, they opened an office above a restaurant called El Paseo in Santa Barbara and started Sonos in 2002.

The focus of the team was to create a system that was easy to install and would be able to work through cross-technology integration, but this increased the complexity for the designers and the developers. They chose Linux as the basic platform, but the operating system needed drivers for audio, wireless and others, to work with the new music system. So the founders decided to create those drivers.

Finally, in 2003, the company was ready with the design and prototype of its first product. John MacFarlane demonstrated the prototype at the Consumer Electronics Show, in 2004, where it won the “Best of Audio” award. It was the first wireless music system. The company launched the system, naming its Digital Music System, in 2005. It was the combination of smart speakers and a remote. People welcomed the system with open arms, and they loved it. The reviews for the system gave positive points to its design, reliability, and great sound.

It is clear that MacFarlane thought ahead of time, and this way, he created the systems capable of receiving the new upgrades. The same year, Sonos launched the Digital Music System, it introduced a new amplifier, i.e. ZP100 amplifier, for it. The company also announced to make those music systems available for the U.K. citizens too.

With the launch of the iPhone, in 2007, the company launched its app, that enabled the iPhone to become the controller for its Digital Music System. In 2011, the company launched another app for Android users.

In 2009, the company released its much cheaper, 400 dollars, PLAY:5, all-in-one smart speaker. The continuous updates and improvements in the music systems made the company one of the leaders in the market, and its products popular worldwide. In 2011, the company added Sirius XM and Spotify to its catalogue. In 2012, the company upgraded its speakers with Amazon Cloud Player compatibility, following a collaboration with Tencent, through which it added the QQ Music to its catalogue. Currently, the music systems from Sonos support Apple Music as well as music from other popular streaming services including Spotify.

Since its inception, Sonos has been introducing the world with the innovative music products and is the pioneer in the wireless music streaming technology. The company and its story has been an inspiration for every aspiring entrepreneur, which not only tells them to be successful, but also tell them to prioritize quality for long-term success.

Mike Lazaridis : The Canadian Entrepreneur & the Co-Inventor of BlackBerry

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A lover of science and a visionary innovator, Mike Lazaridis, is the one, who is known as the father of Smartphones, in the global wireless community. A science lover and a philanthropist, he is the true supporter of the power of basic science to improve and transform the world. With the development of wireless technology, Lazaridis changed the world of communication to an extent. He is one of the most influential people of the world, who have contributed and are continuously contributing to the betterment of the world with their inventions.

Early life

Lazaridis was born on 14 March 1961, in Istanbul, Turkey. His parents belonged to the Pontic Greek dialect, who later moved to Canada, in 1966, when Lazaridis was just five years of age. The family settled down in Windsor, Ontario, where he found his first love, i.e., Science, in the Windsor Public Library. He loved reading the scientific facts and was fascinated by how things worked. His love for reading books led him to win an award, at the age of 12, for reading every science book in the Windsor Public Library. He was a science enthusiast and spent most of his childhood, in the basement of his house, assembling and building, rockets and radios, along with his friends. He even built buzzer for the popular game Reach For The Top, when he was in high school.

Founding RIM

In 1979, he entered the University of Waterloo, where he adopted electrical engineering with an option in computer science. But, only before two months of his graduation, he dropped out of the college, to found his company, Research In Motion (RIM), to fulfil a contract that he received from the General Motors, in 1984. The contract included the requirement for developing a network computer control display system. Lazaridis founded the company along with his friends Mike Barnstijn and Douglas Fregin, with the money Lazaridis’ parents had lent them through a loan. The company later developed barcode technology for a film, that was the greatest accomplishment for a newly set up company.

Mike Lazaridis
Image Source: www.wlu.ca

By 1988, RIM was the first North American wireless data technology developer company. It also developed connectivity products for Mobitex wireless packet-switched data communications networks, becoming the first company outside Scandinavia, to do so.

The company was involved in emerging wireless technology and in the year 1999, it had scored many patents based on the same technology under its name. It had developed the DigiSync Film KeyKode Reader, Mobitex protocol converter, Mobitex point-of-sale solution, RIMGate Mobitex X.25 gateway, Freedom-Type II PCMCIA radio modem for Mobitex. In 1996, RIM developed the first two-way messaging pager, a competitor of Skytel two-way paging network developed by Motorola, that was named as Inter@ctive Pager.

BlackBerry the Smartphone Startup

In 1999, under the name of RIM, Lazaridis, developed the BlackBerry 850 pager. The device was based on the BlackBerry Enterprise Server, that could receive push email from a Microsoft Exchange Server. RIM, in April 2000, launched its first BlackBerry smartphone named as BlackBerry 957. The smartphone used the encryption and S/MIME, providing high security for the user data, making the phones popular in no time. The following smartphone range from RIM was also launched with the same prefix Blackberry, that became its trade name. The next smartphone launch included the BlackBerry Pearl 8100 (the first BlackBerry phone having multimedia features), Curve 8300 series and Bold 9000.

As in 2007, Apple launched iPhone and encouraged RIM to launch its first touchscreen phone, the BlackBerry Storm, launched in 2008. Till the fall of 2010, the company had 21 million BlackBerry users in the united states. The company also expanded worldwide having 79 million BlackBerry users globally. In 2012, Lazaridis and Balsillie became the co-CEOs of the company. Only after one year of Lazaridis’ joining as the co-CEO of RIM, he resigned on 28 March 2013 from his post.

Personal Life

Lazaridis is married to Ophelia, along with whom, he has participated in various philanthropy works. The two have donated money for various research works, like for the establishment of the Perimeter Institute for Research in Theoretical Physics, the Institute for Quantum Computing in the University of Waterloo, and establishing a building for Nanotechnology Engineering program, in the same university. He is one of the members of the board of governors of the University of Waterloo and served as the vice-chancellor of the university between 2003 to 2009.

Lazaridis was awarded an Academy Award and an Emmy Award for his technical achievements. In 1999, he received an honorary doctorate degree from the University of Waterloo.