Two of SDN company's founders left shortly after offer for parent Alcatel-Lucent Despite the departures of two founders, Nuage Networks is key to Nokia’s SDN ambitions once the Alcatel-Lucent acquisition closes, Nokia says. Alcatel-Lucent launched Nuage in 2013 as an internal start-up to develop a software overlay for automating and orchestrating hybrid clouds. Two of the company’s founders, Florin Balus and Dmitiri Stiliadis, left shortly after Nokia announced intentions to acquire Alcatel-Lucent in April. Balus went to MosaixSoft, a data center software start-up that has yet to debut. Stiliadis left in June but is still a non-executive technical advisor to Nuage while he explores other opportunities. That their departures, and those of a couple of other executives, closely followed Nokia’s announced purchase was coincidental, insiders say. Balus was eager to explore something outside of networking, while Stiliadis just wanted to explore. They weren’t discouraged by whatever Nokia had planned for Nuage… if the company even had plans for the SDN start-up with a handful of name brand enterprise accounts. But it can’t help perception building. Did Nokia want to de-emphasize or de-fund Nuage’s mission, or disengage financial incentives Alcatel-Lucent may have had in place for the company and its employees? Nokia’s buying Alcatel-Lucent to combine fixed and mobile broadband assets, obtain IP routing, and augment core networks, cloud applications and services. Nokia will also get Alcatel-Lucent’s Bell Labs for research and development. In software-based virtualization, Nokia is expected to focus squarely on Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) for service providers and network operators. Though Nuage also has some service provider accounts, its business is founded on SDN for private and hybrid enterprise clouds. But Nokia says it won’t tamper with Nuage because it’s counting on the company’s SDN prowess to expand opportunities. From a Nokia spokesperson: We can confirm the importance of Software Defined Networking for Nokia once the deal with Alcatel-Lucent has closed, and therefore you can expect Nuage will play an important role for the company in the future. Diversification of a customer base beyond telco operators will also be part of our strategy, and Nuage clearly has a role to play here as well. More from Cisco Subnet: Who’s Really in Charge at Cisco? Cisco sues HP over VoIP contract Ethernet switching in high gear in Q2 HP serves up its open switches Carriers all in on SDN… Almost Cisco pal SimpliVity accelerating IPO? Cisco SDN controller has a security hole Data center drives Ethernet market Jane Austen lets the boogie man in: Cisco report NFV a hit for OpenDaylight Follow Jim Duffy on Twitter SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe