Shiva Corporation

Shiva Corporation

Company type	Public
Industry	Computer networking
Founded	1985; 40 years ago (1985) in Cambridge, Massachusetts
Founder	Frank Slaughter Daniel J. Schwinn
Defunct	1998; 27 years ago (1998)
Fate	Acquired by Intel

Shiva Corporation was a company that specialized in computer networking and associated equipment, in particular remote access products. The company was founded in 1985, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Shiva was co-founded by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) graduates Frank Slaughter[1] and by Daniel J. Schwinn, the current president and CEO of Avidyne Corporation.[2]

Shiva added to its product portfolio with the acquisition of FastPath, an AppleTalk/Ethernet Gateway from Novell Inc. in 1990.[3]

Shiva acquired the British network products company Spider Systems in 1995, which became Shiva Europe Ltd.[4]

In 1996, Shiva acquired the Cupertino, California-based remote networking software supplier AirSoft Inc for around 65 million USD.[5] This acquisition gave Shiva AirSoft's Powerburst software, which aimed to improve remote-access performance (speed and accuracy) by cacheing files on the client and validating data in the cache prior to fulfilling subsequent access requests.[6] AirSoft's president at the time was Jagdeep Singh, who went on to co-found QuantumScape in 2010.

Users of 16-bit Internet Explorer on Windows 3 with dial-up connections saw the Shiva name regularly, as the company provided part of the dial-up TCP/IP stack for Internet Explorer versions 3, 4 and 5.[7]

In October 1998 Shiva was acquired by Intel[8] and became part of the Intel Network Products Division. Intel's acquisition of Shiva took place during a lengthy class-action lawsuit in which it was alleged that Shiva hid information concerning the deterioration of the company.[9] The lawsuit was settled in 1999 with Shiva agreeing to pay 4.35 million USD.[9]

In November 2002 it was acquired by Simple Access Inc., which adopted the Shiva Corporation identity.[10] A year later, the company was acquired by Mernet Secure Network. Mernet were subsequently acquired by Eicon Networks in February 2004.[11] Since 2006, Eicon are now known as Dialogic Corporation.

References

1. "Early Success".
2. "Avidyne Leadership Team - Dan Schwinn". www.avidyne.com. Archived from the original on 2008-04-17.
3. InfoWorld. InfoWorld Media Group, Inc. 1990-06-11.
4. Shiva Corporation Finalizes the Acquisition of Spider Systems
5. CBR Staff Writer (1996-07-02). "Shiva Buys AirSoft for IT Remote Network Kit". Tech Monitor. Retrieved 2021-08-15.
6. Enck, John (1996-04-30). "Airsoft's Powerburst". ITProToday. Retrieved 2021-08-15.
7. Article: Shiva's remote access client technology included in Microsoft Internet Explorer; Open Client Programming Interface enables remote access capabilities for Windows 3.x applications.^[dead link‍]
8. Acquisition: Intel to Acquire Shiva Corporation; Broadens Product Line and Channels to Bring Comprehensive Data Networking Solutions to Small to Medium Enterprises - Company Business and Marketing, EDGE, On & About AT&T, October 26, 1998.
9. "Case Summary: Shiva Corporation Securities Litigation". Securities Class Action Clearinghouse. Stanford Law School. Archived from the original on 2007-06-10. Retrieved 2021-08-15.
10. "Simple Access Becomes Shiva". www.lightreading.com. Retrieved 2025-01-23.
11. Leyden, John (13 February 2004). "Eicon snaps up Shiva". The Register.