Patrick Leary couldn't have known that this site, www.bwiadeadpool.com, was on my list of Broadband Wireless Internet Access sites to set up. It was originally "in the back of my mind" but the more I thought about it, the more it nagged at me that so many interesting companies with good ideas, are now gone, struck down by the ruthlessly Darwinian process of capitalism.
So when Patrick posted this message to the WISPA Public list, I accelerated plans to get this site going. It will be a low-priority site for now while I launch others, but feel free to send your favorite nominations for BWIA Deadpool to me.
Here's Patrick's contribution to this opening posting of BWIA Deadpool:
Subject: old WLAN history
Date: February 16, 2007 9:25:11 AM PST
Well, for sure this industry never stands still does it Steve? As one fond of change, that one of the things I most enjoy. I knew from people there that V-com has become Vecima (much better 'new millienium' type name), but I did not know they absorbed Wave/Waverider. Did Charles (Brown) join Vecima too? Years ago when the Cirronet folks were creating their company out of their successful industrial wireless space, I sat down with of the principals. They really thought they had the secret sauce. I was very cautionary, trying to impart how challenging the market was/(is!). They had a hard and not especially gratifying few years.
I forgot about Arraycom sold off iBurst. Sigh. It made me "remember how much I have forgotten" about lost companies in this business. Remember ioSpan? How about Beamreach? Remember they even had a successful Verizon trial fours years ago.
And then how about all the companies bought, collapsed into and morphed over the years? Someday we should build a full "BWIA family tree" of sorts. Fun examples (I might be a little off [is that Fruedian?]) just from perhaps the 4 original wireless LAN pioneers:
Glenair spun off Western Multiplex>WMUX buys the original WLAN pioneer Proxim and keeps Proxim name> Proxim buys Farallon and Proxim buys Agere>Proxim sold in bankruptcy to YDI who had recently "bought" Terabeam>YDI/Terabeam dba Proxim
And within that story is Agere: Lannet spins off>LANair pieces become part of Lucent's original pioneering WLAN group>Lucent spins out Agere which comes out with Orinoco which ends up at Proxim...
And fewer would know the others with ties from LANair formed original WLAN pioneer BreezeCOM, which later merged with Floware to became Alvarion in 2001...
How many remember that Telxon created original WLAN pioneer Aironet which was bought by Cisco.
And all that is one tiny fraction of all that has taken place and does not even cover the rise of the UL BWA application itself where we were also a principal pioneer on the product side (but we were only smartly following the lead of the original WISPs, most who were using our gear that pre-dated DSSS) as the others stayed in WLAN.
I wonder what the next 12 years will bring?
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