It’s hard to believe that Internetwork Engineering (IE) is celebrating 25 years of being in business this month. I've been fortunate enough to be part of the IE family for most of those years having been the first employee that our founder, Greg Rivers, hired back in early 1998. 25 years seems like yesterday and forever when you view it through the lens of a rapidly changing information technology industry.
I remember back when standards for networking were so new. Depending on the platform, ethernet and TCP/IP weren’t even the de facto standard. I spent much of my early engineering years configuring networks with now legacy protocols over limited bandwidth and backup circuits that were 56K dial-up modems or ISDN circuits. Unfortunately, these days most of my hands-on knowledge base is irrelevant, but I like to tell stories of the good ol’ days to any of our engineers who will listen.
Over the past 25 years, IE has evolved from a core routing and switching company to now offering a full suite of solutions and services around networking, data center, collaboration, and cybersecurity. The one constant during that transformation has been our dedication to providing outstanding engineering services that help our customers solve business needs. What’s also exciting these days is whether you are cloud centric, hybrid, or on prem, our portfolio of solutions can exist within “Any Prem” depending on your consumption needs.
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention how Cisco has been a big part of our 25-year history. The partnership, loyalty, and brand recognition has been mutually successful for both companies in the regions we jointly serve. There are several people at Cisco that have helped fuel our growth and success over the years. Everyone here at IE appreciates Cisco's support, as well as our extended eco-system of partners that complements our solutions and service offerings.
I can go on and on talking about technology, but what I’m most proud of over the last 25 years is how we’ve been able to help close to 1,000 organizations of all sizes and industries. Equally impressive is the fact that many of our people within the IE family have been a part of this journey for close to 10 years! Our people, along with the best solutions, and your trust in us is what I think sets us apart.
Congratulations to 25 years for the IE team. Thank you for everything you do!!