Santa Monica Networks? In Lithuania?

April 20, 2008

Estonia Finland Latvia Lithuania Santa Monica WTF?

Wait, there’s a networking company in Lithuania called Santa Monica Networks? And they do business from Lithuania, through Latvia and Estonia, all the way up to Finland? Huh?

Comments (7)

Jaanus says:

April 20, 2008 at 2:58 pm

According to their Estonian history page at http://www.smn.ee/index.php?fuseaction=free.browse&mid=26&cid=18 :

“We started operating in 1992 as Santa Monica Software, as a subsidiary of the Finnish company with the same name. After SMS joined the Swedish Salcom Communications in 1999, Cygate Group was formed, and we were a part of it until early 2003.

In January 2003, as a result of MBO the Estonian and Lithuanian subsidiaries became independent business units, and in April, the Latvian subsidiary was formed. All three continue operations as Santa Monica Networks.”

So apparently it originally came from Finland 🙂
Cyrus Farivar says:

April 20, 2008 at 3:00 pm

Yeah, but that still doesn’t explain why it’s named after a small beachside town in California.
Business » Santa Monica Networks? In Lithuania? says:

April 20, 2008 at 5:55 pm

[…] cyrusfarivar.com wrote an interesting post today on Santa Monica Networks? In Lithuania?Here’s a quick excerpt Wait, there’s a networking company in Lithuania called Santa Monica Networks? And they do business from Lithuania, through Latvia and Estonia, all the way up to Finland? Huh? […]
Tarmo Mamers says:

April 21, 2008 at 10:53 pm

There was a company in Finland somewhere in the end of 1980s – beginning of 1990s with a name of Santa Monica Software. (SMS) They had nothing to do with software, but sold networking equipment. Mainly Cisco, as I recall. I don’t know the exact reasoning behind the name though. So I don’t sort out here the connections to the town in California… But some clarifications on the history.

In the beginning of 1992 they established a subsidiary in Estonia. It also sold mainly Cisco equipment and network-related planning, installation and support services. When one wanted routers in 1990s, it usually meant Cisco, and it surely meant SMS those times 🙂

During the following years SMS in Finland with it’s Estonian subsidiary was bought by Swedish Salcom, afterwards a larger Cygate Group was formed – the later now still being a significant player on European networking and services market. In 2003 the Estonian subsidiary was bough out from Cygate and became independent. First two parts of the name was taken from the past – “Santa Monica” – and the last part was chosen more appropriate to describe the operations – “Networks”.

In fact, Santa Monica Networks (SMN) Group was formed, which is located in Estonia, and has four subsidiaries in four countries doing the real business – SMN AS in Estonia, SMN SIA in Latvia, SMN UAB in Lithuania and SMN Oy in Finland (AS, SIA, UAB and Oy mean Inc or Ltd in the respective local languages).

Currently there are lot of different names in SMN portfolio of equipment, and the boxes and services are a lot more than basic networking. Juniper, F5 Networks, Check Point, Nokia, Transmode, ArcSight – to name a few most important players.

This is short unoffial overview – I’ve been doing business with the company all this time as a customer, until 2006. It ended up as now being employed by SMN 😉
Cyrus Farivar says:

April 22, 2008 at 9:09 am

Right, but again, I don’t understand how a Finnish company takes its name from a city in California — my hometown!

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Santa_Monica,_California&printable=yes
Tarmo Mamers says:

April 22, 2008 at 12:10 pm

I will refresh my memories and dig deeper if needed in the following days to have an answer 😉
Tarmo Mamers says:

April 23, 2008 at 1:25 am

The most popular story tells that friends from USA and Finland had an idea to start business of selling Cisco equipment in 1989. American friends were living in Santa Monica, CA, and thus the first two parts of the company name. “Software” was the third part, as this was the most selling name in ICT industry these days.

Another story tells that the friends in two countries wanted to do some business, but the Finns wanted to do selling Cisco and the Americans wanted to do writing software.

As to my knowledge, the present Santa Monica Software Inc in Malibu, CA, has nothing to do with Santa Monica Software back in 1990s.