NOKIA= no brainer!...............Communications
Nokia Builds Its Other Business
Lisa DiCarlo, Forbes.com, 05.09.01, 1:00 PM ET
LAS VEGAS - The first thing that comes to most people's minds when they hear the name Nokia is, of course, cell phones. But behind the scenes, the Finnish phonemaker is quickly building an Internet division that is already on track for half a billion dollars in sales this year.
Nokia's (nyse: NOK - news - people) three-year old Internet Communications division was conceived by Chairman Jorma Ollila, who dispatched his number two, Pekka Ala-Pietila to Silicon Valley to start the group. The purpose was to build scalable back-end products that would enable the third generation of wireless communications, dubbed 3G.
That same year, Nokia bought Ipsilon Networks, a maker of Internet routers and switches. It later ported firewall security software from its partner, CheckPoint Software Technologies (nasdaq: CHKP - news - people), to run on the hardware. It also bundled in virus protection software from McAfee Associates and intrusion protection technology from Internet Security Systems (nasdaq: ISSX - news - people).
Nokia made another strategic acquisition with Network Alchemy, which makes high-end virtual private networks. VPNs are a cheaper, more secure way for businesses or individuals to communicate or do business over the Web. In fact, the Internet Communications group accounts for eight of the 14 overall acquisitions Nokia has made since 1997.
Nokia sells appliances loaded up with all this software to service providers, Web hosting companies and large enterprise customers. Yesterday it said Exodus Communications (nasdaq: EXDS - news - people), already a customer of the firewall product, would buy the full lineup of Nokia VPNs. |
