Much of the technical excellence we see is derived from innovation, but that's far from the final word. In the networking and communications markets, things must work together.
Most networking vendors follow the standards route.
Companies such as Intel and 3Com push standards through international committees, and those standards eventually lead to new products. If you've got the talent, though, there's another way. You can, indeed, come up with an innovative technology and prove it is so good that bigger companies will want to license it. That's how a small company called Tut Systems brought the Tut HomeRun Network Interface Card to market in time for Christmas 1998. AMD, Intel, Lucent, National Semiconductor, and Rockwell are all integrating Tut's technology into chip sets, and companies such as Compaq and 3Com have purchased licenses.