[Note, to skip directly to the question and answer portion of the presentation, go to this link, http://www.viodi.tv/category/history-2/ieee-2/rolm/]

Part of Silicon Valley’s mystique is the way companies treat their staff. From free to subsidized lunches to on-site daycare to gymnasiums, the Silicon Valley egalitarian and work-play culture is definitely part of the draw that attracts people from around the world and part of the reason for this region’s continual reinvention. Recognizable names such as Google, Facebook, LinkedIn and Yahoo are the face of today’s Silicon Valley, but, if not for the foundation laid by pioneering companies, such as ROLM, Santa Clara Valley might not be known as Silicon Valley.

ROLM literally represented the transition from the agricultural-centric Valley of the Hearts Delight to the tech-centric Silicon Valley. ROLM was started in 1969 by four founders who’d graduated from Rice University and were lured to the Bay Area by Stanford’s work-study program. The first building was in a prune shed in Cupertino. Fast-forward less than a decade later and they had hockey-stick like growth and a facility that was more like a resort than a work-place.

ROLM made its mark in military computing; not only with the  technology, but how they dealt with the military. Unlike traditional suppliers to the military, they developed ruggedized computers on their own dime and with no risk to the government. Although this approach actually led to more cost-effective hardware compared to traditional vendors, the military chaffed at losing control of the intellectual property. This prompted ROLM to branch into commercial markets; specifically telecommunications.

Their commercial products, starting with the CBX, the world’s first computerized branch exchange, a telephone system that brought never-before seen features and capabilities. In the early 1980s, they built on this innovation with multiple products, such as the first digital phones, voicemail, integrated voice and data terminals and one product that was never commercially released; the world’s first text messaging system.

To fully exploit the business, ROLM looked for a partner and approached HP; Hewlett and Packard, the company that paved the way for breaking down barriers between management and workers and was influential on Silicon Valley start-ups that followed. The partnership with HP didn’t materialize, however, and IBM swooped in purchasing ROLM for $1.56B; at 40x return on the IPO, it was the most successful IPO return in Silicon Valley to that time. The resulting culture clashes and IBM struggles led to ROLM’s sale to Siemens in 1988 and the ROLM name fading from products by 1998.

Katherine Maxfield, author of Starting Up Silicon Valley: How ROLM Became a Cultural Icon and Fortune 500 Company. herself a Silicon Valley veteran in her own right, lived the ROLM history up close and personal as her husband is Robert Maxfield (the “M” in ROLM).  In the entertaining video above, filmed at an IEEE Consultants’ Network of Silicon Valley (CNSV) event in October, 2014, Maxfield brings to life, through little known anecdotes, the history of an iconic company that laid the foundation for the innovative companies that make Silicon Valley what it is today.

Author’s Note

On a personal note, this author has many fond memories of sneaking into the ROLM cafeteria which was across the street from his place of work at the time, Catel. Granted, a friend, who worked at ROLM, would also meet me for lunch on occasion and he showed me the campus and its many worker-friendly features, like the gym and pool.  He also explained how ROLM had designed the military computers on their own dime and how the founders were adamant that the military wouldn’t get the associated Intellectual Property.

The cafeteria wasn’t really a cafeteria. It was more like a restaurant with a variety of food at subsidized prices. Walking the peaceful, almost garden-like grounds of the campus, one would see people sunning themselves at the pool, juggling on the lawn (where this author learned to juggle) and, one time, even seeing a tiger on a leash walking the grounds (it was there for a promotion for a company trip they had planned to a local amusement park).

From an outsider’s viewpoint, ROLM was everything Maxfield describes and her descriptions bring back pleasant memories of an earlier phase in Silicon Valley’s continually evolving economy and culture.

[Special thanks to Kathie Maxfield for her review of this article and the associated posts.]