Millennial Net Achieves Major Milestones in 2004
Wireless Sensor Networking Platform Provider Demonstrates Technology Leadership with Award Recognitions and Product Innovations
Burlington, Mass.--Dec.15, 2004--Millennial Net, Inc., the leading developer of self-organizing, wireless sensor networking systems, today announced significant milestones in 2004 in the areas of industry recognition, product-line expansion and overall corporate growth. The momentum the company has achieved over the last year signifies Millennial Net’s continued technology leadership in delivering robust, scalable networking platforms to meet growing market need for low-power wireless sensing solutions and the new class of applications they enable.
In 2004 Millennial Net expanded its product line to offer customers increased flexibility and fast time to deployment. Closing its Series B funding round in May, the company’s product and technology developments resulted in its receipt of major industry recognitions for its innovations and technical leadership including honors from the Instrumentation Systems and Automation Society (ISA), Technology Review, Frost & Sullivan EDN magazine and Sensors magazine among others.
"2004 was about proving our networking system in the real world," said Andy May, president and CEO of Millennial Net. "Our focus was on helping Millennial Net’s customers complete successful field trials, demonstrating that our system meets the robustness, power-efficiency and scalability requirements in commercial buildings, hospitals and harsh industrial environments."
Highlights and Milestones of 2004
Industry Recognition
- Frost & Sullivan bestowed Millennial Net with the 2004 Wireless Sensors Technology Innovation of the Year Award. The Award recognized the company for its introduction of an outstanding enterprise-class solution based on wireless sensor networking and acknowledges the potential of the solution to become an industry standard and the breadth of intellectual property related to it.
- Sokwoo Rhee, company co-founder and chief technology officer, was named to the 2004 list of the world's 100 Top Young Innovators by Technology Review, MIT's Magazine of Innovation. The TR100, chosen by the editors of Technology Review and an elite panel of judges, consists of 100 individuals under age 35 whose innovative work in technology has a profound impact on today's world.
- ISA – the Instrumentation, Systems, and Automation Society – awarded the Douglas Annin Award to company co-founder and chief technology officer Sokwoo Rhee. This award recognizes an outstanding achievement in the design or development of components of an automatic control system from the input measurement through the final control element.
- Sensors magazine awarded Millennial Net a “Best of Sensors Expo” award in the Communications & Networking Products category for its Sensor Network Management Software.
- Dow Jones VentureWire selected Millennial Net as an Investors' Choice Award winner. One of only 10 companies honored with the prestigious Investors' Choice distinction, Millennial Net was recognized as a stat-up technology company that is best positioned for long-term success in the wireless space.
- FierceWireless named Millennial Net as a member of their annual "The Fierce 15" awards program, a listing of the top 15 wireless startups of 2004. FierceWireless, an internationally recognized email newsletter covering the wireless industry, evaluated more than 1,200 privately held wireless companies based on company vision, revenue potential, quality of deals and partnerships and competitive position.
- EDN magazine selected the Millennial Net platform as a finalist for this year's EDN Innovator/Innovation Awards. This program honors truly outstanding electronic products as well as the creative engineers who invent them. The Millennial Net product line was selected from a field of hundreds.
Product Innovation
- The iB-5208 family offers a new wireless sensor networking platform that operates on 868 MHz radio band for license-free operation in Europe. The product line rounds out the Millennial Net product offerings that include the iB-5209 family for 916 MHz license-free operation in North America and the iB-5324 ZigBee-ready family for worldwide license-free operation on 2.4 GHz.
- The iB-5324 family provides support for emerging standards in low-power wireless mesh networking and integration enhancements to speed deployment and increase revenue opportunities for OEMs and systems integrators. The two primary features of this release are a greater array of software and hardware options and support for 802.15.4 radios based on specifications from the ZigBee Alliance, an association of companies working together to develop low-power wireless networking products based on a global, open standard.
- The Millennial Net Sensor Network Management (SNM) software and Application Programming Interface (API) provide sophisticated management tools for its wireless sensor networking platform. The software eases the installation and maintenance of wireless mesh networks and greatly reduces the complexity of connecting and managing vast networks of sensors and other monitoring devices.
Management Growth and Leadership
- Millennial Net, as a founding member, helped launch the Sensor Network Consortium (SNC) to facilitate the interaction between academia and industry participants that include sensor networking technology innovators, system integrators, OEMs, and adopters or users. Other founding industry members include BP, Honeywell, INETCO Systems Limited, Invensys Inc., L-3 Communications, Henschel, Radianse Inc., Sensicast Systems, and Textron Systems. Academic founders include faculty from Boston University College of Engineering, College of Arts and Sciences and the School of Management affiliates from Harvard University and University of Massachusetts Amherst.
- Millennial Net closed $15 million in Series B funding. New investor BCE Capital, the venture arm of Bell Canada Enterprises, led the round, which also included participation from all Series A investors: General Catalyst Partners, Globespan Capital Partners and Kodiak Venture Partners. The new investment will support expanded sales, engineering and marketing initiatives.
- The company strengthened its management team with the appointments of Mark Pacelle as vice president of marketing and Terry Halloran as chief financial officer. Pacelle came on board from SKY Computer, bringing an impressive 20-year track record distilling customer and market needs to develop and launch innovative technology solutions. Halloran, coming from ExaGrid Systems, has more than 20 years of experience with entrepreneurial companies in the computer industry.
About Millennial Net
Headquartered in Burlington, Mass., Millennial Net is the world’s leading developer of ultra-efficient, highly scalable, self-organizing wireless sensor networking systems. Millennial Net's award-winning networking system software and tiny micro-power hardware modules allow instrumentation and sensing devices like gauges, sensors and actuators to connect and communicate with each other over self-organizing, self-healing networks. Patented technology enables customers to rapidly develop and deploy wireless sensor networks that can operate with an extremely low rate of power consumption on the energy of a 3-volt coin-sized battery for years at a time. Wireless sensor networks enable the remote monitoring and management of critical devices while providing data to enable more informed decision-making, better control and increased revenue opportunities. Wireless sensor networks are in use today for industrial, medical, consumer and military applications. Millennial Net is committed to advancing Wireless Sensor Networking...Anywhere. For more information, please visit www.millennialnet.com.