Technology >> CEO Interviews >> March 2, 2000
MAHESH VEERINA is President, CEO and Founder of Ramp Networks Inc., and
Chairman of the Board, FlowWise Networks, Inc. Mr. Veerina co-founded
San Jose, California-based Ramp Networks in October 1993 with the goal
of developing easy-to-use Internet access devices for small offices and
small businesses. The start-up has emerged as a market leader with its
award-winning WebRamp family of affordable, high-speed, multi-user
Internet access solutions. Mr. Veerina's ability to predict emerging
markets by anticipating the intersection of enabling technologies and
user needs has earned him distinction within the networking community.
Considered the founder of the multi-million dollar 'modem bonding'
market, he holds several industry patents including Ramp's Connection
Optimized Link Technology. Connection Optimized Link Technology
intelligently manages connections over multiple modems, enabling
simultaneous Internet access for multiple users on a single, integrated
device using regular analog phone lines. In addition, the technology
increases productivity by significantly reducing the time to download
Web pages. Prior to co-founding Ramp, Mr. Veerina was an early pioneer
in the development of high performance ATM multi-protocol routers with
SynOptic's ATM group. Mr. Veerina is also credited as the first to use
PCI cards to implement affordable, high-speed ATM networking to the
small business sector. Before that, he worked at Amdahl, where he led
R&D efforts within the protocol development group. Based on the premise
that small businesses account for 53% of the US workforce and Internet
use is expected to grow 74% annually through the year 2000, Ramp is in
an ideal position to capture the surging growth of Internet usage within
the small business sector. In fact, under the leadership of Mr. Veerina,
Ramp experienced 10x growth from 1996-97 and recorded 65% quarter over
quarter growth for the last four quarters. Ramp was also recently
highlighted in Red Herring as one of the 1998 Top IPO candidates and one
of the Top 100 private companies in Upside Magazine. The company is now
publicly traded on NASDAQ, under the symbol RAMP. FlowWise, also founded
by Mr. Veerina, provides businesses with router accelerator technology
to optimize existing network equipment. Based on a router accelerator
switching algorithm patent developed by Mr. Veerina in 1996, FlowWise
products are able to manage over 3 million IP Packets per second. Mr.
Veerina holds an MS in Computer Engineering from Purdue University. Profile
Ramp Networks, Inc.?
Mr. Veerina: The company was founded back in 1995 with the vision and
mission to build technology to
