IPMobileNet

In the whirlwind of the year 2000, the race to build the mobile internet was on. A small, privately-held company from Richardson, Texas, called IPmobile, Inc. saw the future clearly: the convergence of internet services and mobile wireless. Founded just a year earlier in 1999, the company focused on developing critical software for the next generation of wireless infrastructure, known as 3G networks. The core of their business was creating IP Radio Access Networks, or IP-RAN. This software acted as the crucial bridge connecting wireless base stations to the internet, a fundamental piece of the puzzle for enabling mobile data and voice services on a massive scale. The market was projected to grow to over a billion subscribers by 2004, and IPmobile was positioned right in the heart of this technological shift. The company's journey, led by CEO Russell Davis, was less of a marathon and more of a sprint. In August 2000, networking giant Cisco Systems announced its definitive agreement to acquire the young company. The price tag was a stunning $425 million in Cisco stock. For Cisco, this was a strategic play to quickly gain the technology and engineering talent needed to dominate the emerging mobile internet space. The acquisition brought all 81 IPmobile employees into Cisco's mobile business unit, marking a rapid and lucrative conclusion to the startup's short but impactful history.