Cascade Communications

Cascade Communications was a Westford, Massachusetts based manufacturer of communications equipment.

Founding

Cascade was founded by Desh Deshpande in 1990, and was led by CEO Dan Smith.

Product

Cascade made a compact Frame Relay system. This system allowed Service providers to deliver ATM-based Frame Relay service in an efficient and cost-effective package.

Their most important direct competitor was StrataCom, which was acquired by Cisco Systems in 1996 for US $4B.

In 1997, Cascade won the bid to construct the backbone network for the Ministry of Telecommunications in China. Main competitors included Cisco, 3-Com, and Nortel. Nissi Cui, the Chief Representative of Cascade in the Asia-Pacific region(based in Beijing,China) was largely credited for the success of this business deal. News of this deal was a considerable shock that quickly led to the company's acquisition to Ascend Communications later that year.

Acquisition

In 1997, Ascend Communications acquired Cascade Communications for US $3.7 Billion, to move into ATM and Frame Relay markets. Ascend was later acquired by Lucent Technologies in 1999 in one of the largest mergers in communications equipment history (US $24 Billion). The Cascade portion of Ascend's business was more interesting to Lucent than the modem termination business that comprised the rest of Ascend.

The seed of startups

Both Desh Deshpande and CEO Dan Smith profited handsomely from the acquisition, as did hundreds of Cascade employees. In addition, Cascade was notable for invigorating the telecommunications startup culture in Massachusetts in the mid 1990s. Cascade alumni were founders or key contributors to many other financially successful telecom companies:

* ArrowPoint, founded by Cheng Wu. ArrowPoint was bought by Cisco for $5.7B during the height of the telecom bubble.
* Argon Networks, which had Chris Baldwin as VP of Marketing. Argon, along with Castle Networks and Redstone, was bought by Siemens to form Unisphere Networks.
* Castle Networks, founded by Steve Kelly. Castle became part of Unisphere Networks.
* Ignitus, founded by Mahesh Ganmuhki and Peter Fetterolf. Ignitus was bought by Lucent.
* Redstone, founded by Jim Dolce and Kurt Melden. Redstone formed the backbone of Unisphere Networks, and its product line lives on after Juniper Networks bought the ERX product line from Unisphere Networks.
* Sonus Networks, which hired Hassan Ahmed as CEO. Sonus remains a public company.
* Spring Tide Networks, which hired Bob Sullebarger as VP of Marketing & Product Management. Spring Tide was bought by Lucent for $1.5B.
* Sycamore Networks, founded by Desh Deshpande and Dan Smith. Sycamore remains a public company.