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About
History
Soekris
Engineering was founded in early 2001 by Soren Kristensen in his living room in
Morgan Hill, California. His then-wife Michelle joined the company in August
2001, assisting with all aspects of starting up the business. In July 2003,
after experiencing rapid growth, Soekris incorporated and moved to its current
headquarters in sunny Santa Cruz, California. Soekris was recognized in 2004 by
the San Jose/Silicon Valley Business Journal as the 10th fastest
growing private company in the Silicon Valley for its 700% revenue growth from
2001 to 2003.
Management Team
Founder/CEO/Chief Engineer:
Soren Kristensen has over 25 years of experience in network, communication and
embedded computer design. He saw a need for a compact, ultra-reliable, tough,
yet low-power appliance that is optimized for communications applications such
as firewalls, routers, and access points, using open source software for
limitless possibilities. Soren serves Soekris as CEO and Chief Engineer from his
office in Denmark.
CFO/Operations Manager:
Michelle Kristensen began work on the business side of the operation. Michelle
has over 17 years of experience in accounting and office management. Michelle
has a BA in Liberal Studies from California State University, East Bay
(Hayward), and earned her MBA from San Jose State University. Michelle serves as
CFO and oversees all US operations.
Production Manager:
Jeff Forster came to Soekris in March 2002 from California’s Central Valley,
where he worked for 25 years in the fresh produce industry. Jeff serves as
Production Manager, supervising testing and assembly personnel as well as
managing shipping & receiving and handling RMAs and custom enclosure (case)
orders.
Products
Soekris
Engineering, Inc. offers a line of standard products of x86 based communication
computers for the OEM market. They are available in any volume, from single
units to high volume, and can also be customized to individual requirements.
The
net4501, Soekris’ first product, came to market in 2001, and it remains a
relevant and useful product to this day. It spawned other successful iterations,
such as the net4511 and net4521, both very useful as wireless access points
because they feature PC-Card interfaces.
The net4801
series, the first Soekris product to offer a USB interface as well the ability
to add a hard drive, has been extremely successful. However processor
end-of-life issues beyond our control have forced Soekris to begin to phase it
out in favor of our newest product line, the net5501 series. Read more about EOL
of the Geode processor
here.
The net5501
series boasts a faster processor and more memory, but also adds SATA interface and
more power to the PCI slots, and has four Ethernet ports. As with all other Soekris products, it is
compact, low power and ultra-reliable.
Soekris
also carries a line of its own lan and vpn cards, as well as a T1 card, power
supplies, customized hard drive mounting kits, and other accessories. We plan to
expand our product line to include CF cards, hard drives, and additional memory
shortly.
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