Bengaluru: Hyderabad boy Keerti Melkote has just struck gold in California — IT giant Hewlett-Packard on Monday announced that it is buying Aruba Networks, the company Keerti founded in 2002, for nearly $3 billion. Aruba provides wireless networking gear for enterprises, competing against the likes of Cisco.
Keerti, who studied in Karnataka Sikshana Samiti’s Nrupatunga Junior College in Hyderabad, and went on to study at Purdue University, is not only in for a multi-million dollar payout, at least, from the deal, but he and Aruba’s current chief executive officer Dominic Orr will also move into HP to run its networking business, one of the IT giant’s businesses that never took off but now stands a chance as enterprises increasingly adopt mobility.
“Enterprise networks are increasingly being built around a ‘mobile first’ architecture, and that’s where we make sense for HP. This is a good deal for us, too, because HP will give us a worldwide presence and customers,” Keerti, told Deccan Chronicle over phone from Sunnyvale just an hour after officia-lly announcing the deal.
Keerti, the son of Gopal and Lalitha Melkote, comes from a family, which had fought for the freedom struggle.
His grandfather Dr G.S. Gopaliah Melkote, a medical practitioner, participated in all satyagrahas including salt satyagraha and was imprisoned. He won from Hyderabad Lok Sabha seat thrice — twice on the Congress ticket and once on Telangana Praja Samiti’s ticket.
