ROLM
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
ROLM Corporation was a technology company founded in Silicon Valley in 1969.
The company name was formed from the first letters of the founders names - Gene Richeson, Ken Oshman, Walter Loewenstern, and Robert Maxfield. The four men studied electrical engineering at Rice University and earned graduate degrees at Stanford University.
Initially, the company produced ruggedized or mil-spec (military specification) computers which used Data General software. Over time, the company began to focus on digital voice, and produced some of the earliest examples of all-digital voice equipment, including Computerized Branch Exchanges (CBX's) and digital phones (using proprietary technology).
Two of the most popular telecom systems were the large scale PABX coined ROLM CBX and the smaller PABX coined ROLM Redwood. ROLM was later acquired by Siemens AG in 1990 and the ROLM name was eventually dropped by the mid 1990's and rebranded as Siemen's Hi-Com PBX's. The CBX and Redwood were meant to directly compete with Nortern Telecom's SL-1, AT&T Definity telephone systems and other computerized digital voice systems being developed at the time.
According to the Siemen's USA website, Siemen's still offers support on it's ROLM CBX and Redwood telephone systems. Many of these phones are still in use in large scale universities and institutions, as the phones are bulky, but very reliable. The telephone sets themselves are comparable to the original Nortel Meridian SL-1 Q series telephone sets which were also quite bulky and extremely durable.
In 1984 IBM partnered with ROLM Communications based in Santa Clara, CA to develop digital telephone switches to compete directly with Northern Telecom and AT&T. ROLM was acquired by IBM in 1984. IBM sold its ROLM division to Siemens AG in 1990.
