Network Peripherals Inc. — FDDI/Ethernet switching gear, 1989–2001 (MA-L)

Network Peripherals Inc. was a real, well-documented Silicon Valley networking-hardware vendor, not a bare IEEE registration with nothing behind it. Founded in 1989 and headquartered in Milpitas (later Fremont), California, it traded on NASDAQ as NPIX and filed regular SEC disclosures through the late 1990s. Its product line targeted enterprise/campus LAN backbones: FDDI network adapter cards (e.g. the NP-MCA-3 Micro Channel FDDI card), FDDI concentrators, and — its signature product — the "EIFO" FDDI-to-Ethernet switching hub line, which shipped starting Q1 1994 around a custom "FIREchip" ASIC doing wire-speed IP fragmentation per port. The company grew by acquisition, buying NuCom Systems Inc. (a Taiwan-based Fast Ethernet switching maker) in March 1996 and NetVision Corp. in April 1997, then ceased to exist under its own name in August 2001 when it reverse-merged into FalconStor, Inc., which took the NPIX shell public identity and renamed itself FalconStor Software, Inc. (NASDAQ: FALC) — a data-storage company, a different line of business, with no evidence the networking-hardware brand continued afterward. A separate complication surfaced during registry lookup: the OUI registry actually holds two distinct organizations for this one requested slug — the US "Network Peripherals Inc." (San Jose, CA) and an unrelated UK entity, "Network Peripherals, Ltd." (England), a name collision this entry flags rather than papers over.

Registry match (US)

00-80-D8 → NETWORK PERIPHERALS INC., 2890 Zonker Road Suite 209, San Jose, CA 95134, US, MA-L [Confirmed] — the IEEE MA-L registry; cross-confirmed by cached Wireshark the Wireshark manufacturer database DB and api.macvendors.com

Registry match (UK, DISTINCT unrelated entity, same slug)

00-C0-54 → NETWORK PERIPHERALS, LTD., 4th Floor, 17 Bowater Rd., England, GB, MA-L. A full-registry search by organization name ("Network Peripherals") and by prefix returns exactly two rows across the IEEE MA-L registry, the IEEE MA-M registry and the IEEE MA-S registry — this UK block and the US 00:80:D8 — so no further IEEE registration and no MA-M/MA-S sub-allocation exists under the UK registrant; the registry supplies its name and address only, and no in-repo source carries company substance for it. [Confirmed as a registry row only; company substance Unknown] — the IEEE MA-L registry; cross-confirmed by cached Wireshark the Wireshark manufacturer database DB

Company identity (US entity)

founded 1989; HQ Milpitas, later Fremont, CA; NASDAQ ticker NPIX [Confirmed] — SEC EDGAR 10-K/8-K filings

Products / device context

FDDI adapter cards (NP-MCA-3, IBM Micro Channel, early 1990s), FDDI concentrators (1991), "EIFO" FDDI-Ethernet switching hubs (first shipped Q1 1994, custom "FIREchip" ASIC), Fast Ethernet LAN switches (1995–96). Enterprise/campus backbone gear, not consumer products.

[Confirmed] — SEC 10-K FY1998, techmonitor.ai, ardent-tool.com (archived NP-MCA-3 device page)

Acquisitions

NuCom Systems Inc. (March 1996, Taiwan-based Fast Ethernet switching maker); NetVision Corp. (April 1997) [Confirmed] — SEC 10-K FY1998

Corporate fate

reverse merger into FalconStor, Inc. (August 2001); combined entity renamed FalconStor Software, Inc., NASDAQ: FALC — a data-storage software company, a different business line; no evidence the networking-hardware brand continued after the merger [Confirmed] — SEC 8-K exhibit (ex99.htm)

Additional prefix 00-A0-AE

appears on a third-party legacy mirror (cavebear.com) attributed to "Network Peripherals, Inc.," but live cross-checks conflict — api.macvendors.com attributes it to NuCom Systems, Inc. (plausibly a pre-acquisition retained name) and the Wireshark the Wireshark manufacturer database DB attributes it to Dassault Electronique. Not corroborated as a Network Peripherals prefix by the registry snapshot used here; EXCLUDED from this entry's prefix list pending primary-source (IEEE) resolution. [Unknown / excluded, not asserted] — cavebear.com/archive/cavebear/Ethernet/vendor.html, api.macvendors.com, wireshark.org the Wireshark manufacturer database DB

IEEE date-of-registration

not published by IEEE for either MA-L block; none recorded (no third-party "date registered" artifact treated as fact) [Confirmed] — standing policy

Slug/data-quality flag

the single requested slug "vendor-network-peripherals" maps to TWO distinct, unrelated legal entities in the registry (US Inc. vs UK Ltd.), both MA-L class. This entry documents both registry rows but scopes its company-substance research (products, SEC history, corporate fate) to the US entity only, since that is the one web research corroborated. The UK Ltd. entity's own business substance is Unknown: the cached registries hold exactly one row for it (00:C0:54 — name and address only, no further block and no MA-M/MA-S sub-allocation on a by-name and by-prefix search), and no other in-repo source names it. Recommend operator review for slug disambiguation (e.g. split into vendor-network-peripherals-inc / vendor-network-peripherals-ltd) before/at finalization.

[Confirmed issue, Likely resolution path] — this site's own enrichment records (source of the pending slug), R1-registry angle notes

Usage/security context (analyst inference, not sourced)

a live device today reporting a MAC in this vendor's OUI range would be highly anomalous as genuine original hardware, given the company itself stopped existing under this name in 2001; more likely explanations are a locally-administered/spoofed MAC, a tool reusing an old vendor prefix, or rare surviving legacy gear.

[Likely — inference] — reasoning only, no citation