RIP: Larry Roberts, Pioneer of Packet Switching, 1937-2018

Dr. Lawrence Roberts, who pioneered the use of packet switching in the ARPANET and the X.25 protocol, passed away on December 26 at his home in Redwood City, California, of a heart attack. He was 81.

Roberts received his bachelor's, master's and Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and later worked at the MIT Lincoln Laboratory. In 1967, he became program manager for the ARPANET. Roberts is credited with applying concepts of decentralized control, Interface Message Processors, and packet switching, developed by Wesley Clark, Donald Davies, Paul Baran, Leonard Kleinrock and others, in building the first wide area packet-switching network.

In later years, Roberts led a number of business ventures including Telenet (packet switching, sold to GTE), DHL Corporation (global delivery and logistics), NetExpress (Asynchronous Transfer Mode equipment), ATM Systems, Caspian Networks (switch routers), Anagran (IP flow management), and Netmax.

Obituaries:

Computer History Museum: http://www.computerhistory.org/atchm/2017-chm-fellow-lawrence-g-roberts/

The New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/30/obituaries/lawrence-g-roberts-dies-at-81.html

BBC:  https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-46721427

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Sandra D. Motley to head Nokia's Fixed Networks Business

Sandra D. Motley as President of Nokia's Fixed Networks Business Group effective January 1, 2019. She replaces Federico Guillén, who as previously announced has been named President of Customer Operations, EMEA & APAC. Motley will report to Nokia President and CEO Rajeev Suri.

Motley started her career at AT&T Bell Laboratories, held a range of R&D and sales leadership positions at Alcatel-Lucent in both fixed and wireless businesses, and then joined Nokia in 2016.  At Alcatel-Lucent, her roles included leading sales for U.S. wireless accounts and serving as Chief Operating Officer (COO) for that company's wireless business, where she was responsible for R&D, Quality and Operational functions. After becoming part of Nokia, Motley oversaw end-to-end solutions for the North America market, and most recently, she has held the role of COO for the Fixed Networks business group.

Nokia forms Access Networks business

Friday, November 23, 2018  Nokia  

Nokia is forming an Access Networks Division that will consist of its current Mobile Networks and Fixed Networks Business Groups.

The company said it is making this move to fully exploit opportunities of 5G.

"Nokia has a unique advantage in the 5G era with its end-to-end portfolio," said Nokia President and Chief Executive Officer, Rajeev Suri. "By creating a single Access Networks organization that includes both fixed and mobile, we can improve our customer focus, simplify our management structure, and more efficiently leverage our full portfolio."

Also, Nokia appointed Tommi Uitto as President of Mobile Networks, replacing Marc Rouanne, who is leaving the company. Uitto is a 23-year Nokia veteran and an expert in radio technologies. His most recent role has been leading Mobile Networks Product Sales since the acquisition of Alcatel-Lucent.

Nokia plans to announce a President of Fixed Networks in due course.

Nokia's Group Leadership Team now consists of the following members: Rajeev Suri, Basil Alwan, Hans-Juergen Bill, Kathrin Buvac, Ashish Chowdary, Joerg Erlemeier, Barry French, Sanjay Goel, Bhaskar Gorti, Federico Guillén, Kristian Pullola, Sri Reddy, Maria Varsellona and Marcus Weldon. As announced earlier, Chowdary will step down and Ricky Corker will join as of January 1, 2019. The President of Access Networks will be appointed in due course and will also join the Nokia Group Leadership Team.

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NETGEAR completes divestiture of its Arlo division

NETGEAR completed its previously announced distribution of 62,500,000 shares of Arlo common stock (NYSE: ARLO) owned by NETGEAR, representing approximately 84.2% of the outstanding shares of Arlo common stock. After the completion of the distribution, NETGEAR no longer owns any shares of Arlo common stock. In addition,  Patrick C.S. Lo resigned as a director of Arlo, and the Board of Directors of Arlo reduced the size of the board from seven to six.

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Zayo signs global SaaS provider

Zayo signed a global Software as a Service (SaaS) for data center colocation at one of its Midwestern data centers. The deal doubles the customer’s data center footprint with Zayo.

“This expansion is a testament to the customer’s impressive growth and success,” said Bruce Garrison, senior vice president of Zayo’s zColo business segment. “Our ability to scale to meet their continued demand, coupled with our high-quality data center footprint, is well aligned with the needs of this important customer.”

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