Stratus Technologies
Encyclopedia
Stratus Technologies, Inc. a major producer of fault tolerant computer servers. The company was founded in 1980 as Stratus Computer, Inc. in Natick, Massachusetts, and adopted its present name in 1999. The current CEO and president is Dave Laurello. Stratus Technologies, Inc. is a privately held company, owned primarily by Intel Capital, NEC
, MidOcean Partners
and Investcorp
. The parent company, Stratus Technologies Bermuda Holdings, Ltd., is incorporated in Bermuda.
Stratus Computer was a Marlborough, Massachusetts, based producer of fault tolerant minicomputer
s. It competed with computers from Tandem Computers
and to a lesser extent Digital Equipment Corporation
's VAX
.
Starting in 1983, its computers were resold worldwide by Olivetti
under CPS/32 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.
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
of the company by Ascend Communications
in 1998 (later acquired by Lucent Technologies
).
The enterprise server portion of the business was of little interest to Ascend and that portion was spun off in a management buyout
in 1999, with funding from international investment firm, Investcorp
. 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
, a buyout firm based in Los Angeles. That unit was eventually named Cemprus LLC. Stratus purchased Cemprus in 2003. It's 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 as Stratus Telecommunications. The two companies are now separate entities. One is not the parent of the other.
Now privately held, Stratus Technologies, Inc. is owned by private equity
investors Investcorp
and MidOcean Partners
as well as Intel Capital and NEC.
On July 16, 2010 as a reverse merger between YMax and VocalTec - all of the Stratus Telecommunications technologies are owned by VocalTec
MC68000 processors, but then migrated to Intel i860
processors and finally Hewlett-Packard
's PA-RISC
architecture. The current V-Series server line runs the VOS
operating system, which originally had many features inspired by or derived from Multics
. Applications written for VOS continue to be deployed on the current generation Stratus servers called ftServer V-Series, an Intel processor-based ftServer line first introduced in June 2002 for Microsoft Windows 2000 and higher. Other operating systems supported on the legacy platforms (XAR, Jetta / Continuum) -- HP-UX and a home-grown UNIX product called FTX (Fault-Tolerant UNIX)-- are supported but no longer actively sold. 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 enterpise-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
, its U.S. headquarters, and in Phoenix
, Arizona
, as well as several worldwide offices, in locations such as the UK, Mexico
, the Netherlands
, South Africa
, France
, Germany
, Italy
, Spain
, Australia
, New Zealand
, Singapore
, Hong Kong
, China
and Japan
.
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.
NEC
, a Japanese multinational IT company, has its headquarters in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. NEC, part of the Sumitomo Group, provides information technology and network solutions to business enterprises, communications services providers and government....
, MidOcean Partners
MidOcean Partners
MidOcean Partners is a private equity firm specializing in leveraged buyouts, recapitalizations and growth capital investments in middle-market companies...
and Investcorp
Investcorp
Investcorp is a manager of alternative investment products, serving high-net-worth private and institutional clients. Its principal client base is in the six countries of the Gulf Co-operation Council, but it also has institutional clients in North America and Europe...
. The parent company, Stratus Technologies Bermuda Holdings, Ltd., is incorporated in Bermuda.
Stratus Computer was a Marlborough, Massachusetts, based producer of fault tolerant minicomputer
Minicomputer
A minicomputer is a class of multi-user computers that lies in the middle range of the computing spectrum, in between the largest multi-user systems and the smallest single-user systems...
s. It competed with computers from Tandem Computers
Tandem Computers
Tandem Computers, Inc. was the dominant manufacturer of fault-tolerant computer systems for ATM networks, banks, stock exchanges, telephone switching centers, and other similar commercial transaction processing applications requiring maximum uptime and zero data loss. The company was founded in...
and to a lesser extent Digital Equipment Corporation
Digital Equipment Corporation
Digital Equipment Corporation was a major American company in the computer industry and a leading vendor of computer systems, software and peripherals from the 1960s to the 1990s...
's VAX
VAX
VAX was an instruction set architecture developed by Digital Equipment Corporation in the mid-1970s. A 32-bit complex instruction set computer ISA, it was designed to extend or replace DEC's various Programmed Data Processor ISAs...
.
Starting in 1983, its computers were resold worldwide by Olivetti
Olivetti
Olivetti S.p.A. is an Italian manufacturer of computers, printers and other business machines.- Founding :The company was founded as a typewriter manufacturer in 1908 in Ivrea, near Turin, by Camillo Olivetti. The firm was mainly developed by his son Adriano Olivetti...
under CPS/32 brand. Then, from 1985 to 1993, its computers were resold by IBM
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
under the IBM System/88 brand. The company is now based in Maynard, Massachusetts.
History
The company's traditional markets have been financial services companies such as banks and stock exchangeStock exchange
A stock exchange is an entity that provides services for stock brokers and traders to trade stocks, bonds, and other securities. Stock exchanges also provide facilities for issue and redemption of securities and other financial instruments, and capital events including the payment of income and...
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
Buyout
A buyout, in finance, 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" control of the target company....
of the company by Ascend Communications
Ascend Communications
Ascend Communications was an Alameda, California-based manufacturer of communications equipment that was later purchased by Lucent Technologies in 1999....
in 1998 (later acquired by Lucent Technologies
Lucent Technologies
Alcatel-Lucent USA, Inc., originally Lucent Technologies, Inc. is a French-owned technology company composed of what was formerly AT&T Technologies, which included Western Electric and Bell Labs...
).
The enterprise server portion of the business was of little interest to Ascend and that portion was spun off in a management buyout
Management buyout
A management buyout is a form of acquisition where a company's existing managers acquire a large part or all of the company.- Overview :Management buyouts are similar in all major legal aspects to any other acquisition of a company...
in 1999, with funding from international investment firm, Investcorp
Investcorp
Investcorp is a manager of alternative investment products, serving high-net-worth private and institutional clients. Its principal client base is in the six countries of the Gulf Co-operation Council, but it also has institutional clients in North America and Europe...
. 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
Platinum Equity, LLC is a private equity investment firm founded by Tom Gores in 1995. The firm focuses on leveraged buyout investments of established companies in the U.S. and Europe....
, a buyout firm based in Los Angeles. That unit was eventually named Cemprus LLC. Stratus purchased Cemprus in 2003. It's 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 as Stratus Telecommunications. The two companies are now separate entities. One is not the parent of the other.
Now privately held, Stratus Technologies, Inc. is owned by private equity
Private equity firm
A private equity firm is an investment manager that makes investments in the private equity of operating companies through a variety of loosely affiliated investment strategies including leveraged buyout, venture capital, and growth capital...
investors Investcorp
Investcorp
Investcorp is a manager of alternative investment products, serving high-net-worth private and institutional clients. Its principal client base is in the six countries of the Gulf Co-operation Council, but it also has institutional clients in North America and Europe...
and MidOcean Partners
MidOcean Partners
MidOcean Partners is a private equity firm specializing in leveraged buyouts, recapitalizations and growth capital investments in middle-market companies...
as well as Intel Capital and NEC.
On July 16, 2010 as a reverse merger between YMax and VocalTec - all of the Stratus Telecommunications technologies are owned by VocalTec
VocalTec
VocalTec Communications Inc. , is an Israeli telecom equipment provider. The company was founded in 1989 by Alon Cohen and Lior Haramaty, who invented and patented the first Voice over IP audio transceiver...
Products and customers
Its legacy product line was originally based on MotorolaMotorola
Motorola, Inc. was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, which was eventually divided into two independent public companies, Motorola Mobility and Motorola Solutions on January 4, 2011, after losing $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009...
MC68000 processors, but then migrated to Intel i860
Intel i860
The Intel i860 was a RISC microprocessor from Intel, first released in 1989. The i860 was one of Intel's first attempts at an entirely new, high-end instruction set since the failed Intel i432 from the 1980s...
processors and finally Hewlett-Packard
Hewlett-Packard
Hewlett-Packard Company or HP is an American multinational information technology corporation headquartered in Palo Alto, California, USA that provides products, technologies, softwares, solutions and services to consumers, small- and medium-sized businesses and large enterprises, including...
's PA-RISC
PA-RISC
PA-RISC is an instruction set architecture developed by Hewlett-Packard. As the name implies, it is a reduced instruction set computer architecture, where the PA stands for Precision Architecture...
architecture. The current V-Series server line runs the VOS
Stratus VOS
VOS is a proprietary operating system running on Stratus Technologies fault-tolerant computer systems. VOS is available on Stratus's ftServer and Continuum platforms...
operating system, which originally had many features inspired by or derived from Multics
Multics
Multics was an influential early time-sharing operating system. The project was started in 1964 in Cambridge, Massachusetts...
. Applications written for VOS continue to be deployed on the current generation Stratus servers called ftServer V-Series, an Intel processor-based ftServer line first introduced in June 2002 for Microsoft Windows 2000 and higher. Other operating systems supported on the legacy platforms (XAR, Jetta / Continuum) -- HP-UX and a home-grown UNIX product called FTX (Fault-Tolerant UNIX)-- are supported but no longer actively sold. 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 enterpise-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, Massachusetts
Maynard is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As of the 2010 census, the town population was 10,106.- History :Maynard, located on the Assabet River, was incorporated as an independent municipality in 1871. Prior to that it was known as 'Assabet Village' but was legally...
, its U.S. headquarters, and in Phoenix
Phoenix, Arizona
Phoenix is the capital, and largest city, of the U.S. state of Arizona, as well as the sixth most populated city in the United States. Phoenix is home to 1,445,632 people according to the official 2010 U.S. Census Bureau data...
, Arizona
Arizona
Arizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...
, as well as several worldwide offices, in locations such as the UK, Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
, the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
, South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
, Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
, Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
, China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
and Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
.
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.