Multiven Group BV is a Netherlands-based provider of independent and decentralised software integrity maintenance and cyber-defence services for multivendor Internet Protocol network hardware and blockchain nodes. Its customers include large enterprises, Internet service providers, small, medium businesses, Telecommunications companies, Fortune 500, Academia and government agencies.
History
Origins
Multiven was founded in 2005 in Palo Alto, California by British-Nigerian technology entrepreneur Peter Alfred-Adekeye. His aim was to build a company able to maintain the integrity of the world's Internet infrastructure without a hardware, software or political agenda.
Headquartered in Rotterdam, Netherlands, Multiven is today the world's first and only independent provider of software management, maintenance and cyber-defence services for Internet networks. Multiven has regional sales offices in Paris, France, London, UK, Dubai, UAE.
History of Market
The Internet, a short form of the word Internetwork, is an international ubiquitous network of networks. Given the amount of data traversing it, its criticality to personal, corporate and national security cannot be over-emphasized.
The Internet infrastructure comprises software-driven networked switches, routers, firewalls, servers and storage hardware that switch, route, protect and store all voice, video and text data intelligently across the world.
Internet equipment manufacturers like Cisco Systems, Hewlett-Packard, etc. have a quasi monopoly on the multi-Billion dollar software maintenance services market for networking equipment through their own maintenance contracts and authorized third party maintenance. Multiven is the only provider offering a one-stop alternative for businesses of all sizes.
The Multiven Open Marketplace
In March 2018, Multiven launched the development of the Multiven Open Marketplace, a blockchain project aiming to transition its existing business into a decentralized organisation. Multiven is developing a blockchain-based open Marketplace to allow customers to buy and sell new and pre-owned Information Technology hardware, software and services, on a peer-to-peer basis, without intermediaries, solely powered by smart contracts and one global Cryptocurrency, the Multicoin. Multiven's maintenance and cybersecurity services will be accessible on the platform and can be bound to any hardware device.
A portion of the Multicoin transaction fees from the Multiven Open Marketplace, funds Multiven B-Fence, a program that proactively defends Bitcoin nodes and the routers that connect them to other nodes, against centralisation cyberattacks.
Controversies
Antitrust lawsuit against Cisco Systems
On December 1, 2008, Multiven filed a United States Federal antitrust lawsuit against Cisco Systems, Inc. in an effort to open up the network maintenance services marketplace for Cisco equipment, promote competition and ensure consumer choice and value. Multiven's complaint alleges that Cisco harmed Multiven and consumers by bundling and tying bug fixes/patches and updates for its operating system software to its maintenance services (“SMARTnet”) and through a series of other illegal exclusionary and anticompetitive acts designed to maintain Cisco's alleged monopoly in the network maintenance services market for Cisco networking equipment. In April 2009 during a Cisco-initiated mediation, Cisco offered Multiven a few million dollars as settlement and limited software updates for its customers but insisted that Multiven couldn't advertise its access to Cisco software updates. Multiven declined this offer as it still limited free and fair competition. The following month in May 2009, Cisco filed a set of false counterclaims against Multiven and alleged that in 2006 “Multiven’s CEO or someone under his control” viewed Cisco's ‘protected’ public website 99 times and downloaded Cisco IOS five times with a total value of $14,000, using a Cisco-employee provided credentials.