Appendix C: Selected Company Overviews
Codex
When Jim Cryer and Arthur Kohlenberg incorporated Codex in 1962, they did so because their employer was moving out-of-state and they had no wish to leave the Boston area. So they took their knowledge and contacts - and did as so many entrepreneurial engineers of the day - and lived on winning defense contracts. But the uncertainty of whether there would be another timely contract, or maybe even another one period, led Cryer and Kohlenberg down the path of innovating data communication products. First they needed a product worthy of their intellectual heritage. Learning of Jerry Holsinger, who had innovated a 9600 bit per second modem, they quickly negotiated the acquisition of his struggling company. Although deep in technical talent, for example G. David Forney (and in the years ahead engineers and scientists such as Ken Miller and John Day), they needed experienced management and hired Art Carr, who in turn hired John Pugh. Their timing could not have been better. In December 1968, just before the Initial Public Offering market for technology companies closed, Codex went public, raising $2.1 million, a sum once unimaginable and soon to be as if imagined. Soon out of cash and living on begged bank borrowings, Codex management found venture capital investors hungry to make a “cheap” technology investment. Within a few years, management and engineers, tempered by the brink of disaster and aided by a creative Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, successfully innovated both high speed lease-line modems and statistical multiplexers; the only company to master both technologies in-house. By 1979, as they were becoming the leading Data Communication company, management agreed to be acquired by the much larger Motorola Corporation to buffer their future from both technological and competitive uncertainties. Then came their efforts to leverage their market power and enter both the emerging Networking and Internetworking markets.
Codex Historical Critical Dates
- 1962 – Codex Founded
- 1968 – Art Carr joins. Jerry Holsinger’s company acquired. IPO in December.
- 1969 – Introduce first 9600bps modem (AE96), Holsinger leaves
- 1970 – Cash problems, financing, Carr becomes President
- 1971 – Introduce second generation 9600bps modem (9600c)
- 1972 – Financing, Milgo sues
- 1973 – Sign Rockwell to do modem chip
- 1974 – Start work at Statistical Multiplexer
- 1975 – Introduce Statistical Multiplexor (6800). Introduce third generation 9600bps modem using Rockwell chip. Gives Codex dominant market leadership.
- 1976 – Sales force problems
- 1977 – Sale to Motorola
- 1980 – Introduce 14,400bps modem
- 1982 – Launch Local Area Networking (LAN) efforts
- 1984 – Introduce next generation 2600 Series 9600 bps modem. Cease LAN efforts. OEM Ungermann-Bass products
- 1985 – Introduce 19,200bps modem
- 1987 – Sign OEM deal with Stratacom for T1 Mux