FTP Software
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FTP Software was a software company founded by James van Bokkelen, John Romkey (author of the MIT PC/IP package), Nancy Connor, Roxanne van Bokkelen (nee Ritchie), and Dave Bridgham. It was the first of many companies to name themselves after an Internet protocol. Their main product was PC/TCP, a full-featured, standards-compliant TCP/IP package for DOS. It was built over a TSR kernel, which itself (initially) used built-in drivers, and (later) TSR packet drivers.
The company had a good run, but suffered greatly from both internal and external pressures. The company had grown extremely quickly and repeatedly moved physically farther away from its roots at MIT. The technically adept founders were inexperienced as managers. They suffered from in-fighting, epitomized in a public divorce between two of the founders. Up until 1995, FTP had been a dominant supplier of TCP stacks for x86-based machines. When Microsoft started including a TCP stack by default in Windows 95 (as has become standard with all operating systems), FTP lost a significant revenue source, and management (by that time mostly non-founders) could not adapt to the realities of a new market.
In 1998, FTP was bought out by former rival NetManage. The deal was controversial, with some shareholders claiming it was not in their interest since the sale price was less than the amount of money in FTP's back account. [link]
Products
- InterDrive
- OnNet
- LanWatch
- PC/TCP
- WinSNMP
References
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