Intertex Data AB was founded in 1982 in Stockholm, Sweden, by current owner and CEO Karl Erik Ståhl. Since then Intertex has been working with telecommunication and security products in close cooperation with large carriers and ISP’s. During the 1990’s Intertex was one of Europe’s most successful players in the dial-up modem market, mainly OEMing their products to European carriers and major ISPs.
Intertex analogue modems in a rack at a Swedish service provider in the early 1990s.
In 1998, when the technological evolution of dial-up modems ended, Intertex started developing feature rich ADSL modems called Intertex IX66.
The IX66 was a firewall and router for the small-office/home-office (SOHO) market that had a unique support for the SIP protocol through its built-in SIP Proxy and Registrar. The IX66 could also include a built-in ADSL modem, 802.11b wireless access, and smart card reader, making it a complete solution for the SOHO segment. The IX66 was developed with the needs of the SOHO market in mind, creating a product that could take care of current and future communication for these types of users, including live person-to-person communication, e.g. voice and video, in addition to handling their data.
With the IX66 series of ADSL modems Intertex created a stable and extendable architecture and filled it with features like a real SPI and packet filtering firewall, a user friendly web interface as well as enhancements such as email notification, display and control panel, built-in support for wireless networks, and its unequalled SIP support.
The current series in the Internet Gate family, the Intertex SurfinBird IX78 is a SIP capable firewall and router for the advanced user and offices up to 50 persons and includes all the field proven SIP enabled firewall/router technology included in the IX66.
Intertex is known for its attractive, high quality products, which have won numerous awards, and for being first out with new technology. For example, Intertex launched the world’s first 14400 bps pocket modem, the world’s first 28800 bps PCMCIA modem, the world’s first PCMCIA with voice functions, the world’s first modem with telephone functions and headset, and the very first 56 kbps modems in Europe, in both desktop and PCMCIA versions. Intertex was also first to integrate a 56Kbps modem and a smart card reader in a 5mm thick PCMCIA card!
Innovation, quality and reliability are the cornerstones of Intertex business idea. Therefore, research and development are based nearby the head office, in Sweden. Intertex products, oriented to the SOHO market, have been mainly distributed through retailers usually under their brand name. Some examples are TeliaSonera as well as PowerBit Security (former About Communication) for the Swedish market, and Telecom Italia, British Telecom for the European market.
Intertex has expanded rapidly and continues to grow. The financial performance has been remarkably good. According to a yearly survey done by Veckans Affärer, a leading business magazine in Sweden, Intertex was the second most profitable IT-company in Sweden in the year 2000.