We have been innovators ever since Enea was founded in 1968. Our software development engineers are driven by a passion for new technology. Although the company has transformed from an IT consultancy firm to a software vendor, we have always been solving customers’ problems with innovative solutions.
Many of our ideas have been genuinely pioneering. One of the first assignments was to produce a data management solution for an air traffic control system. The client, the Swedish Civil Aviation Administration, obviously applied very stringent standards on availability and low latency. It’s no exaggeration to say that with the development and delivery of a real-time operating system back in the late 60s, we made history.
Our success in operating systems paved the way for developing new products and applications for other sectors. In 1985, we launched Enea OSE, now one of the world’s most widely used operating systems. Ericsson and Nokia have been using this product in their radio base stations for several generations of mobile networks.
In the same decade, we became a pioneer and visionary in electronic communication and the Internet. The company was the first in the Nordics to connect to the Internet, received the first email in Sweden, and registered the country’s first Internet domain. In this early stage, Enea was the hub of all Internet traffic in Sweden.
We were also part of the emergence of mobile data communication. The latest version of Enea OSE was central to Ericsson’s global rollout of GSM networks in the 90s. In base stations, our real-time operating system enabled the routing of calls, and later, mobile data communication. The first mobile version of HTML (the Internet text formatting language) was also developed by us.
In recent years, acquisitions have helped strengthen our position in strategic market segments. The integration of Qosmos, Openwave Mobility, Aptilo, and AdaptiveMobile Security, has expanded our portfolio and added the market’s best solutions for embedded traffic intelligence, mobile video traffic management, service provider Wi-Fi and mobile network security.
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1960’s
Enea is founded by Rune Engman and the company receives the first large order from Standard Radio & Telefoni AB for the design of a data storage solution in an air traffic control system. The programmers Göran Sundström, Olof Björner, Karl-Erik Eriksson, and Ingrid Karlmar are recruited and the group writes software history with their real-time programming and development of operating systems
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1970’s
Enea receives orders from Denmark, Germany, and France, and forms subsidiaries in those countries. Most important for Enea’s development is the Simula project for the Swedish Defense Research Agency. In this project Enea lays the foundation for the first object-oriented language. Other customers include Stansaab, ASEA, LM Ericsson and Facit. The number of employees goes from 5 to 75.
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1980’s
Enea OSE was launched in 1985. Today it is one of the world’s most commonly used operating systems. ASEA is the biggest customer. Enea lands multi-year assignments to develop software and hardware for the police’s dispatch system. Enea becomes the base node in Swedish USENET, predecessor to today’s Internet. Sweden’s first e-mail is sent over the Internet to Enea in 1983. The number of employees goes from 75 to 153.
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1990’s
Ericsson launches its GSM project, which includes the operating system Enea OSE. The Ericsson Group becomes Enea’s biggest customer. Hard work with Enea OSE drives the company forward and upward. International establishment initiated. Number of employees goes from 153 to 493.
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2000’s
Enea secures its position as a world-leading supplier of solutions for communications-intensive products. Consultant portion grows sharply and a major acquisition in Romania increases outsourcing capacity. Focus on telecoms intensifies and the product portfolio is strengthened through intensive development and acquisitions. The software offering is particularly suited for the telecom industry’s stringent demands for availability and reliability. Geographic expansion to three continents. Number of employees about 650.
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2010’s
Enea divests its Swedish services organization which gives a new business focus on telecoms and networking. Enea’s commercial Linux distribution sees the light of day and deepened strategic alliances are formed with ARM and key hardware manufacturers. Enea invests increasingly in open source industry collaboration projects (Linaro, Linux Foundation, Yocto Project, and OPNFV) and acquires Centered Logic, Qosmos, and Openwave Mobility. Number of employees about 600.
