FORE Systems

FORE Systems was a computer network switching equipment company based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The company is now part of Ericsson.

Founded in 1990 to supply a US Naval Research Laboratories request for development, FORE initially produced Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) network interface cards for SBus- and TURBOchannel-based computers in addition to ATM adapters for Silicon Graphics computers. FORE's first ATM Switch - the ASX-100 - connected 16 ATM ports each with a capacity of 155.52 Mbit/s. Later interface adapters for the follow-on ASX-200, ASX-1000, and ASX-4000 switches allowed connections up to 2.5 Gbit/s.

The company established a leading position in the market for ATM switching equipment. FORE created a memory-based ATM switch that captured a strong portion of the ATM market. Other technologies include , Gigabit Ethernet and Firewall switching. FORE Systems also supported advanced dynamic routing protocols such as the ForeThought Private Network Network Interface (PNNI) and the ATM Forum's PNNI protocol.

FORE was created by four Carnegie Mellon University professors in the Pittsburgh suburb of Warrendale, Pennsylvania. The name FORE was an acronym of the founders’ first names: Francois Bitz, Onat Menzilcioglu, Robert Sansom, and Eric Cooper.

It was acquired by London-based GEC (now Marconi Corporation plc) to complement its Marconi Communications business and to increase its presence in North America, the world’s largest telecoms market.

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