Banyan Systems Inc.

Banyan Systems, Inc. was founded in 1983 by David C. Mahoney and Anand Jagannathan. Headquartered in Westboro, Massachusetts, the company produced a Network Operating System (NOS) called VINES, an acronym for VIrtual NEtworking System. VINES competed well against Novell NetWare and 3Com products in the early LAN marketplace, chiefly due to an innovative naming convention called StreetTalk, that was built into the NOS. StreetTalk simplified the creation and management of larger enterprise networks and served as a model for later Identity Management solutions.

Banyan flourished from 1984 to 1994. Unfortunately, market pressures, and controversial business decisions began to erode the company’s ability to compete, and after 1994, the company fell into sharp decline. David Mahoney left the company in 1997, and the company was renamed Banyan Worldwide; by this time a majority of the market had migrated to solutions from competitors Novell and Microsoft.

In October 1999 Banyan Worldwide became ePresence, an internet services company providing collaboration, security and identity management solutions. At the same time, it announced the obsolescence of VINES and other Banyan products. On October 24, 2003 ePresence announced that it would cease operations and its assets would be acquired by Unisys.