COMMERCIAL NEWS

Santa Clara, CA — NetConvergence, Inc. announced it is shifting into high gear in an aggressive move to position the company at the forefront of IP storage technology. Founded in Santa Clara in 1998 and led by a team of seasoned industry veterans, NetConvergence has developed a highly programmable and high-performance family of IP storage (ips) connectivity products for the Storage Area Network (SAN) market.

“NetConvergence`s mission is to be the lead provider of solutions for Storage on IP networks, supporting both SAN and NAS appliances, which will create an unsurpassed opportunity for a new world of storage applications,” said Simon K. Fok, President and CEO of NetConvergence. “With network infrastructures being increasingly taxed and interoperability a strong concern, new technologies are emerging to satisfy the problems associated with the limitations of current network architectures. One of the hottest of this new breed of storage solutions – and one that we feel shows the most promise – is IP storage, and we are taking all the necessary steps to propel NetConvergence to a leadership position in this market.”

Michael Peterson, President of Strategic Research, said “The promise of IP- based storage services is lower cost, ease of implementation using standard network components, and standard management. To the IT administrator, IP storage feels normal and this is good. NetConvergence`s value-add is the software layer offering OS offload and storage integration into standard networking components with particular optimization for performance. NetConvergence has essential technology.”

NetConvergence is focused on the architecture, engineering and implementation of software-based IP connectivity, which provide seamless any-to-any connections between servers and storage devices. This will serve as the platform for the ultimate convergence of all existing and future LAN, SAN and WAN protocols into one unified and efficient system, embodied in the company’s MATRIX Integrated Storage GatewaysTM family of products.

While several vendors are proclaiming their entry into the IP storage marketplace, some still months away from introducing a physical solution to match their ideas, NetConvergence has its Matrix ISG system up and running as its beta site at the University of California Los Angeles since December 1999.

The MATRIX family of products will initially have three members: a standalone iSCSI gateway, an iSCSI network interface card and an iSCSI blade that plugs into standard Gigabit Ethernet switches. These products are based on the modular MATRIX software core, which can easily be upgraded to support virtually any network protocol or storage interconnect technology that gains prominence in the industry. Initial support for connecting SCSI devices over Gigabit Ethernet using the iSCSI protocol will be extended to include Fibre Channel and Infiniband devices. MATRIX products will thus provide universal connectivity in virtually all network configurations.

NetConvergence announced that it is in the process of assembling a group of individuals to serve on its Executive Advisory Board to advise and guide the strategic and business development of the company. The first to join this Advisory Board are Michael Peterson and Tom Burniece. Peterson is President of Santa Barbara, Calif.-based Strategic Research and an eminent storage industry veteran. Peterson’s engineering, business and marketing background, achieved through 27 years of experience in the storage, software and systems industries, along with his years of research into the IT community, give him unique business, systems and market expertise. A founder of the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA), Peterson is widely known as the leading market analyst in the network storage and storage management industries.

Tom Burniece, an independent consultant based in Silicon Valley, has more than 25 years experience in the storage and networking industries. He is an innovative strategist with solid business skills and has consulted with over 20 companies, ranging from startups to Fortune 100 companies, across a broad range of markets and technologies. Burniece has also been the CEO of two startups, as well as a senior executive at Maxtor, Digital Equipment, and Control Data. At Digital he had P&L responsibility for the $1-billion plus Large Disk and Subsystem business unit for five years, as well as managed various storage hardware and software engineering groups.

Additional information about NetConvergence can be found by visiting the company’s web site at http://www.netconvergence.com .

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