Raytheon snaps up Internet pioneer BBN Technologies
"BBN's rich technology heritage makes this a natural fit," says Raytheon CEO
By Paul McNamara on Tue, 09/01/09 - 10:22am.
Having gained fame in the late '60s by building a Defense Department network that would become the Internet, BBN Technologies today is being acquired by one of the nation's leading defense contractors.
Raytheon announced this morning that is buying the venerable BBN for an undisclosed sum.
From Raytheon's press release:
BBN's diverse portfolio encompasses a range of technologies including advanced networking, speech and language technologies, information technologies, sensor systems, and cybersecurity. The company's deep scientific and engineering talent aligns well with Raytheon's expertise and commitment to excellence.
"BBN brings world class people, technologies and capabilities to Raytheon and our customers," said William H. Swanson, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Raytheon Company. "We expect all of our businesses to benefit from the application of BBN's research and development expertise and technologies across our product lines and programs. BBN's rich technology heritage makes this a natural fit."
As BBN notes on its homepage: "BBN Technologies built the ARPANET in 1969, and members of our Internetwork Research group have over two centuries of aggregate experience in data networking research."
BBN has done plenty of military research work for DARPA in the 40 years since then. Among the company's current projects are:
Flexible Intra-autonomous-system Routing Environment (FIRE): A project in DARPA's Active Nets Program, FIRE security enables flow-specific routing algorithms and/or metrics within an autonomous system.
Smart Environment for Network Control, Monitoring, & Management (SENCOMM): Another project with DARPA's Active Nets Program, SENCOMM extends BBNT's work on Smart Packets (packets carrying executable code) to enable intelligent network performance management tools.
Density-and Asymmetry-aware wireless Networking (DAWN): A project in DARPA's Global Mobile Information Systems Program (GloMo), DAWN addresses the problems of routing in the presence of varying node density and asymmetric links in mobile ad hoc networks.
And here's another one just reported by my Network World colleague Michael Cooney on his Layer8 blog.
History buffs will tell you that BBN is also known for having conducted acoustical analysis in 1978 for the House Select Committee charged with investigating the assassination of President John F. Kennedy 15 years earlier. (Update: Did BBN cover up JFK evidence? A former employee bristles at the suggestion.)
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Not only did they analyze
Not only did they analyze the Kennedy assassination tapes, they analyzed the Nixon 18 minute gap.
More backstory trivia...Vannevar Bush
Raytheon is a direct descendant of a company co-founded by Vannevar Bush.
Vannevar Bush wrote the influential article "As We May Think" that, in some sense, predicted a global linked library (the "memex") from:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vannevar_Bush
"Wholly new forms of encyclopedias will appear, ready made with a mesh of associative trails running through them, ready to be dropped into the memex and there amplified."
...and now his company is buying the company that built the original internet.
Time sharing, too
...and they (BBN) demonstrated the first operational time-sharing system.
Oh, Yes, and the Logo Language...
...was developed at BBN (was too!!)
Scary
Oh boy, thats not good. There goes the neighborhood!
RT
www.anonymous-web.be.tc
An old friend at BBN
One of the BBN engineers who worked on the Kennedy acoustic analysis thing was a close friend of mine, from my own Cambridge days. He told me at the time that what the team was ordered by someone high up NOT to publish what they actually found.
BBN was a great company. They also had a lot to do with the development of the silent propellers used on our submarines.
I remember seeing the "backup" for their mainframe. It was a motor-generator set with a huge flywheel.
Har Har
"He told me at the time that what the team was ordered by someone high up NOT to publish what they actually found."
Because, you know, as we know, the noodle-backboned folks working at BBN, having found the real origin of the assassination of an American President would have all the ethical prowess of a peanut, and keep mum quivering in their boots because a Mysterious Evil Power (tm) ordered them not to tell the truth. We know now at least, how much faith you have in the fidelity of your fellow men. That's just sad.
Joe Kraska
Former BBN Employeee
San Diego CA
USA
Microwave Ovens
Raytheon is the company that invented microwave ovens
Two great Massachusetts companies with links to MIT
I'm just surprised that this didn't happen sooner.
Shorts and Sandels
I remember the old BBN as a place where
guys in shorts and sandals roamed the halls
and the NOC. Wandering in from MIT and
who knows whatever University connected
to the ARPANET.
Where new mind blowing machines like
the Butterfly, Pluribus and C30 IMP and TAC
machines were created.
Where the "@" sign for email was
created along with BBN Unix and a large
part of the IP stack.
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