Xyplex

Xyplex Corporation was founded in the 1980s in Boxborough, Massachusetts Peter Nesbeda, George Conant, and Bob Rosenbaum, all of whom had previously worked for Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). Nesbeda was one of DEC's representatives in the development of the Ethernet specification. The company's first product was a terminal server based on DEC's LAT protocol, which allowed multiple terminals to be connected with one wire in a multiplexed fashion to the VAX architectured machines.

During the early '90s the company grew its range of networking products to include terminal servers, remote access servers, Ethernet switches, enterprise hubs, routers, etc.. When Cisco became the dominant player in the enterprise networking area, the company was sold to Raytheon, which, in 1995, was considering building a commercial data communications division through acquisition. After a year of investigating a number of other companies they decided that the market valuations were too high to comfortably return their investment and Xyplex was sold in 1997 to Whittaker Communications. The company had also purchased Hughes LAN Systems and merged both companies.

After this second acquisition of Xyplex, a large number of its executives left to start new data communications companies, which were acquired in short order as the data communications market was at its peak. The merged company was re-named Xyplex Networks. Its new president was Mike Thurk. He was charged with returning the company to profitability, which required a considerable reduction in product lines and staff to focus on the core strength of the company which was remote access equipment for enterprise customers.

As the company reached a break-even point in 1998, it was sold to MRV Communications.