LONDON — Nokia is acquiring intellectual property from troubled wireless router startup Tahoe Networks along with about 20 employees, including Tahoe cofounder Arthur Lin.
The group has joined Nokia's Core Networks business and will work on the Finnish group's Intelligent Edge strategy at Nokia's facilities in Mountain View, California. It will also assist in development of the company's products and systems for IP-based mobile services.
"The selected assets we bought from Tahoe are quite small in monetary terms, low single-digit millions of dollars. But the key to this deal is the people we have hired, who include some of the best visionaries in IP networking," a Nokia spokeswoman said. She stressed Nokia is not buying Tahoe Networks.
Some of the researchers joined directly from Tahoe Networks, while others had already left the company.
The spokeswoman would not comment on exactly what intellectual property Nokia acquired.
Tahoe has made a series of layoffs and was restructuring over the past few months. It has struggled to make inroads into the wireless router business against rivals like Cisco Systems.
Forty of Tahoe's original 110 employees have already been laid off, but the company had said the move would not affect its plans to roll out its wireless routers. Tahoe was one of the best funded in the wireless router sector, and raised $34 million last June from various venture capital groups. In total, it has raised about $50 million.
Tahoe has a significantly more aggressive approach to marketing than other competitors in wireless sector such as Trapeze Networks Aruba. It also employed many more designers than competitors developing wireless switches.
"We are very pleased to have Dr. Arthur Lin and his team join us in implementing our vision for future mobile packet core networks," says Petri Lyytikainen, general manager, Mobile Packet Core, and Nokia Networks. "The talent and vision of this team further strengthens our Intelligent Edge programs, adding to our IP networking and IP services competencies."
Lin, president and CTO of Tahoe Networks, said : "Nokia has a strong technology platform in IP mobility networks and a compelling vision for bringing new kinds of IP-based services to mobile networks."
Lin brings over 18 years of experience to Nokia in developing systems and technologies for the networking industry.
Lin was cofounder, CTO and vice president of engineering for Shasta Networks and later serve as executive vice president of engineering and operations for Nortel's IP services business unit.
