Bay Networks
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bay Networks was a network hardware vendor formed through the merger of Santa Clara, California based SynOptics Communications and Billerica, Massachusetts based Wellfleet Communications on July 6, 1994.[1] SynOptics was an important early innovator of ethernet products including a pre-standard twisted pair fast ethernet product. Wellfleet was an important competitor to Cisco Systems in the router market.
Bay expanded the product lines of Synoptics and Wellfleet and entered the Asynchronous Transfer Mode product space.
Bay was acquired by Nortel in June of 1998,[2] broadening Nortel's reach from its traditional carrier customer base into enterprise data networking; Nortel renamed itself Nortel Networks after the merger.
The Bay Networks product line survives to this day as the Netgear products that are widely sold by electronics retailers. Netgear originally started as a division of Bay Networks in January 1996, and was spun out as a standalone company in September 1999.[3]
