Indian techies do it again

washington: tech start-ups across the world may be seeing red, but trust amber networks to beat the lights. the fremont, california-based firm, co-founded and led by a group of indian silicon gurus has been acquired by communications giant nokia for $421 million in a market roiled by inflated values and depressed earnings. the all-stock deal sends out a clear message that start-ups with cutting edge technology are still coveted by the giant corporations looking to clamber out of the downturn.founded in 1998 by former cisco systems executive amar gupta and angel investor prakash bhalerao, amber networks is a privately-held networking infrastructure company widely known as the developer of the first fault-tolerant routing platform. amber's routers move voice and data across communication networks more efficiently. in the early days of the internet, voice and data came from disparate systems such as tdm, frame relay, asynchronous transfer mode (atm), and ip. amber's routers sit between the optical core, where traffic is routed as bits of light, and the messy, smaller local networks where traffic is carried in any number of arcane fashions, and streamline all these confusing standards into one seamless network. nokia executives said the acquisition of amber and its expertise in developing fault tolerant routers will help the company shape future mobile network architecture. nokia is developing a new carrier grade routing platform for the intelligent edge under the name of flexigateway. by combining our existing mobile ip-routing capabilities with those of amber networks, we are establishing a leading team of engineers to create the first fault-tolerant routing platform in our market,'' a senior nokia executive said. amber networks is a typical silicon valley start-up that was born out of the frustrations of indian engineers and executives who reach a technological glass ceiling in big american corporations. a native of mysore who graduated from the regional engineering college in surathkal, gupta had worked in companies such as dec and cisco systems, where he was director of engineering, before quitting to venture out on his own. his confrere in the venture was prakash bhalerao, an indore-born angel investor who is known to be one of the busiest deal-makers in silicon valley. once the company was on track with funding, bhalerao and gupta looked to put together the best management team starting with a ceo who brings value. in this case, they zeroed in on sam mathan, a hyderabadi who was a top honcho with lucent technologies. a graduate of osmania university, mathan is a 25-year veteran in the telecom industry, and had begun his career at pacific bell. thus began the storied journey of yet another indian-led networking firm. typically, at the height of the tech boom, a firm like amber would have gone public and acquired valuation running into billions. but with the downturn, many start-ups are only too happy to be acquired. nor is amber the first such indian company to sell to a big communications giant. in 1999, bombay-born iit-ian hemant kanakia sold his torrent technologies to ericcson for more than $ 400 million. coming as it does during the downturn, ambers acquisition may yet signal a green light for the beleagured sector.