Brooktrout Technology

Brooktrout Technology was founded in 1984 in the Greater Boston area by David Duehren, Eric Giler, and Patrick Hynes, former employees of Teradyne, a maker of automatic test equipment also based in Massachusetts.{{cite book | last=Dess | first=Gregory G. | author2=Alex Miller | date=1993 | url=https://archive.org/details/strategicmanagem0000dess_h2s3/page/428/ | title=Strategic Management | publisher=McGraw-Hill | isbn=0070165696 | via=Google Books}}{{rp|428}}{{cite journal | last=Rosenberg | first=Ronald | date=June 12, 1988 | url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-boston-globe-fax-faster-than-a-spee/129792406/ | title=Fax: faster than a speeding Fed Ex truck | journal=The Boston Globe | page=A1, [https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-boston-globe-fax-faster-than-a-spee/129791318/ A6] | via=}}{{rp|A6}} All three were electrical engineers with experience in digital signal processing, gained both in university and on the job while working at Teradyne. Brooktrout struggled to gain venture capital for the first three years of their existence, owing to the founders' youth and what Giles deemed incredulity at the concept of "talk[ing] to machines".{{rp|439}} Thus, the company was initially headquartered out of Hynes' sixteenth-floor apartment in Boston.{{cite journal | last=Boyle | first=Mary Laura | date=December 23, 1990 | url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-boston-globe-getting-more-facts-from/129779164/ | title=Getting more facts from the fax | journal=The Boston Globe | page=6 | via=Newspapers.com}} Giler, having the most pedigreed business education, was named president, while Duehren was named vice president of research and development, and Hynes was named vice president of engineering.{{rp|439}} Hynes, an avid fisherman who was said to get his best ideas while fishing for trout, came up with Brooktrout's name.

While Brooktrout had been eyeing the integration of fax capability in personal computers since its foundation, the company soft-launched with a family of expansion cards allowing PCs to receive voicemail and send phone messages.{{rp|439–440}} In 1985, they launched their first fax-related product, Fax-Mail, which allowed PCs to send and receive fax documents through connection to a modem.{{rp|440}}{{cite journal | last=Gupta | first=Udayan | date=August 29, 1989 | url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/398091057/ | title=Fax Machine Craze Sends A Message of Opportunity | journal=The Wall Street Journal | publisher=Dow Jones & Company | page=1 | via=ProQuest}} Brooktrout's competitor GammaLink had pioneered this technology with GammaFax earlier in the year.{{cite web | last=Grigonis | first=Richard | date=November 2007 | url=https://www.tmcnet.com/voip/1107/the-zippy-files-dialogic-and-cantata-together-again-for-the-first-time.htm | title=Dialogic and Cantata—Together Again for the First Time | work=Internet Telephony | publisher=Technology Marketing Corporation | archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20071222002500/https://www.tmcnet.com/voip/1107/the-zippy-files-dialogic-and-cantata-together-again-for-the-first-time.htm | archivedate=December 22, 2007}} The product was met with consumer confusion and was quickly pulled from the market, Giler deeming it too cutting-edge. In 1987, the product was relaunched in Japan, where it was met with considerable more interest, the company reviving Fax-Mail globally soon afterward, to commercial success. Brooktrout later expanded the Fax-Mail lineup to include models with more advanced features, the family as a whole ranging in prices between US$400 and $1,000 (in 1988).{{rp|A6}}

In 1987, Brooktrout received its first infusion of venture capital by Tie/Communications of Shelton, Connecticut—a major telephone equipment maker worth $250 million at the time. Tie gave Brooktrout $1 million in capital in exchange for a stake in the company, allowing Brooktrout to relocate its headquarters to dedicated offices in Wellesley Hills, Massachusetts.{{rp|439}}{{rp|A6}} Between 1987 and 1989, the company was able to raise $1.5 million more in capital between 50 investment groups.{{rp|439}} During this time, Brooktrout was hired by AT&T Corporation to be the OEM for elements of AT&T's Merlin PBX.{{cite journal | last=Crosariol | first=Beppi | date=May 23, 1995 | url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-boston-globe-reeling-in-profits-from/129791770/ | title=Reeling in profits from major surge in use of faxes | journal=The Boston Globe | page=54 | via=Newspapers.com}}

While Brooktrout posted losses for its first five years, the company was on track to being profitable in fiscal year 1989.{{rp|428}} That year, the company introduced its first product in their popular TR fax server product range. Called the TR112, it was an expansion card featuring two twin-channel fax transceivers, allowing a fax server with eight such TR112es installed to handle sixteen separate fax connections, with each connection being able to send and receive faxes simultaneously. The transceivers support direct inward dialing, allowing users connected to the fax server to be issued their own fax phone number, negating the need for a DTMF-based auto attendant. A piggyback board attached to the TR112 allows each transceiver to digitize and store voice-path information from a connection, allowing the server to handle, for example, DTMF signals from incoming callers corresponding to a hotline interface.{{cite journal | last=Stephens | first=Mark | date=August 14, 1989 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sjAEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA11 | title=Brooktrout Announces Twin-Channel Fax Card | journal=InfoWorld | publisher=IDG Publications | volume=11 | issue=33 | page=11 | via=Google Books}}{{cite journal | last=Smith | first=Tom | date=August 21, 1989 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-RwEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA27 | title=New PC fax products make debut | journal=Network World | publisher=IDG Publications | volume=6 | issue=33 | page=27 | via=Google Books}} Later in 1989, the company introduced the FlashFax, a turnkey fax server based on an IBM PC AT–compatible computer system and featuring a 20 MB hard drive and Brooktrout's TR-111M fax card and TR-100M3 speech digitization card. The FlashFax could serve and store up to 1,000 documents on request through a phone connection using a touch-tone keypad interface that the user could program via monitor and keyboard.{{cite journal | last=Cohen | first=Alan | date=February 27, 1990 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rcd97USDBPQC&pg=PT34 | title=FlashFax Fulfills Literature Requests via Fax | journal=PC Magazine | publisher=Ziff-Davis | volume=9 | issue=4 | page=59 | via=Google Books}} The FlashFax sold fairly well for Brooktrout, prompting the company to develop a slimmer model that could store twice as many documents.

Brooktrout posted consistent growth from the turn of the 1990s through to the mid-1990s, posting profits from 1990 to at least 1995. By the end of 1990, Brooktrout employed 40 people and brought in roughly $470,000 in profit.{{cite journal | last=Grillo | first=Thomas | date=January 24, 1993 | url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-boston-globe-building-on-matters-of/129791378/ | title=Building on matters of fax | journal=The Boston Globe | page=80 | via=Newspapers.com}} A year later, the company netted $910,000 in profit. The company soon counted such major clients as Sharp Corporation and the publishers of Consumer Reports, who used Brooktrout's hardware to devise an on-demand article reprinting service for paying subscribers. As well, the popularity of Brooktrout's Fax-Mail line eclipsed that of GammaFax, and by the mid-1990s, Brooktrout was one of the largest vendors of fax products in the United States.{{cite journal | last=Fioravante | first=Janice | date=January 25, 1995 | url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/250252485/ | title=Citing the Fax | journal=Investor's Business Daily | page=A6 | via=ProQuest}} In September 1992, Brooktrout filed to go public, issuing its initial public offering underwritten by Tucker Anthony.{{cite journal | date=August 31, 1992 | url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/398364430/ | title=Brooktrout Technology Offering | journal=The Wall Street Journal | publisher=Dow Jones & Company | page=B5 | via=ProQuest}} Following their IPO, Brooktrout passed the $1-million profit mark.

During the 1990s, Brooktrout acquired a number of companies in the telecommunications market to help expand their portfolio. In May 1993, Brooktrout acquired DAFCom Corporation of Dallas, Texas, for an undisclosed amount. The acquisition of DAFCom allowed Brooktrout to break into the market of IP-based fax machines, with a line of fax routers for corporate wide area networks (WANs).{{cite journal | date=May 17, 1983 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RR4EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA29 | title=Brooktrout to acquire fax-routing start-up | journal=Network World | publisher=IDG Publications | volume=10 | issue=20 | page=29 | via=Google Books}} In 1995, Brooktrout began selling fax servers specifically for local area networks under the TruFax name, this branding acting as a middle ground between their single-user fax boards and their WAN fax boards.{{cite journal | last=Clarke | first=Michele | date=March 13, 1995 | url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/208156312/ | title=Brooktrout to enter the LAN-fax market | journal=Electronic Engineering Times | publisher=CMP Publications | page=26 | via=ProQuest}} In May 1996, Brooktrout acquired Technically Speaking, Inc., a telecommunications software vendor of Southborough, Massachusetts, for an undisclosed amount.{{cite journal | date=May 31, 1996 | url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-boston-globe-3-for-2-split-raises-br/129779294/ | title=3-for-2 split raises Brooktrout Technology | journal=The Boston Globe | page=41 | via=Newspapers.com}} In July 1997, Brooktrout purchased Netaccess, Inc., from Xircom of Thousand Oaks, California, allowing the company to enter the teleconferencing market with ISDN Primary Rate Interface cards.{{cite journal | date=July 2, 1997 | url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/281670089/ | title=Bizwatch | journal=Daily News | location=Los Angeles | page=B1 | via=ProQuest}}{{cite journal | date=March 24, 1998 | url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/220255895/ | title=Netaccess Markets New ISDN Primary Rate Interface Card | journal=ISDN News | publisher=Phillips Business Information | volume=11 | issue=6 | page=1 | via=ProQuest}} In December 1998, Brooktrout acquired the entirety of Lucent Technologies' computer telephony division for $29.4 million. The acquisition of this division from Lucent allowed Brooktrout to greatly expand their range of Voice over IP and Fax over IP products,{{cite journal | date=December 18, 1998 | url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-san-francisco-examiner-brooktrout-bu/129779316/ | title=Brooktrout buys Lucent division | journal=The San Francisco Examiner | page=C-2 | via=Newspapers.com}} segments in which the company had entered in the late 1990s.{{cite journal | last=Swanson | first=Stevenson | date=June 12, 1998 | url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/chicago-tribune-new-england-regains-high/129779192/ | title=New England regains high-tech edge | journal=The Chicago Tribune | page=14 | via=Newspapers.com}} Reflecting their diversifying business, Brooktrout dropped the "Technology" from their name in May 1999, thereafter trading as Brooktrout, Inc.{{cite journal | date=May 14, 1999 | url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/398665338/ | title=Brooktrout Technology Change | journal=The Wall Street Journal | publisher=Dow Jones & Company | page=C19 | via=ProQuest}}

Following steady growth into the new millennium, revenue in Brooktrout dropped roughly 43 percent in the aftermath of the dot-com bubble burst of late 2000, prompting Brooktrout to freeze salaries and bonuses for top brass, to cancel trade shows, and to sell off their software division, Brooktrout Software, to eYak of Boston in 2001.{{cite journal | last=Howe | first=Peter J. | date=May 21, 2002 | url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-boston-globe-telecom-remains-landsca/129808189/ | title=Telecom remains landscape of despair | journal=The Boston Globe | page=E27 | via=Newspapers.com}}{{cite journal | date=June 2001 | url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/222667287/ | title=eYak acquires Brooktrout Software | journal=Communications Convergence | publisher=Miller Freeman | volume=9 | issue=6 | page=18 | via=ProQuest}} Despite the revenue drop, Brooktrout were able to avoid laying off any their 350 employees. Sales slowly began recovering by 2004;{{cite journal | last=Howe | first=Peter J. | date=May 18, 2004 | url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-boston-globe-long-awaited-turnaround/129808351/ | title=Long-awaited turnaround still not a sure bet | journal=The Boston Globe | page=F21 | via=Newspapers.com}} in May that year, the company acquired SnowShore Networks, a developer of softphone applications based in Chelmsford, Massachusetts, for $10 million.{{cite journal | last=Howe | first=Peter J. | date=March 26, 2004 | url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/404903507/ | title=Brooktrout Buys Chelmsford Start-Up | journal=The Boston Globe | page=D2 | via=ProQuest}}

By 2005, Brooktrout employed 290 workers worldwide, 170 of which were based in the company's new headquarters of Needham, Massachusetts. In August 2005, EAS Group, a telecommunications holding firm based in Hyannis, Massachusetts, announced the acquisition of Brooktrout for $173 million.{{cite journal | date=August 19, 2005 | url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/398927351/ | title=EAS Group Agrees to Buy Firm in Deal Valued at $173 Million | journal=The Wall Street Journal | publisher=Dow Jones & Company | page=A8 | via=ProQuest}} Immediately following the announcement of the acquisition, Giler resigned from the company. After the acquisition was finalized in the last quarter of 2005,{{cite journal | last=Meade | first=Lauren K. | date=September 1, 2005 | url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/404976693/ | title=Brooktrout Move Unclear | journal=The Boston Globe | page=2 | via=ProQuest}} EAS merged their Excel Switching Corporation division with Brooktrout to form Cantata Technology.{{cite journal | date=June 23, 2007 | url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/313189510/ | title=Rolling Meadows | journal=Daily Herald | location=Arlington Heights, Illinois | page=1 | via=ProQuest}} In 2007, Cantata Technology was acquired by Dialogic Group of Parsippany, New Jersey.

{{reflist|colwidth=30em}}

• {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/19980424193418/http://www.brooktrout.com/|title=Official website of Brooktrout Technology|date=April 24, 1998}}
• {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20000304010901/http://www.brooksoft.com/|title=Official website of Brooktrout Software|date=March 4, 2000}}

Category:1984 establishments in Massachusetts

Category:2005 disestablishments in Massachusetts

Category:American companies established in 1984

Category:American companies disestablished in 2005

Category:Computer companies established in 1984

Category:Computer companies disestablished in 2005

Category:Defunct computer companies of the United States

Category:Defunct computer hardware companies

Category:Defunct networking companies

Category:Defunct telecommunications companies of the United States

Category:Fax