SHORT TAKES

SETHI JOINS ENTRADA NETWORKS BOARD OF DIRECTORS

San Diego, CALIF. — Entrada Networks announced the appointment of Dr. Davinder Sethi to its Board of Directors and the resignations of Mssrs. Gregorio Reyes and Charles Haggerty from the board. “We thank Greg and Chuck for their devotion to making the merger of Entrada and Sync Research a reality,” Dr. Kanwar J.S. Chadha, President and CEO of Entrada Networks stated, “and we wish them much success with their other business interests.” Dr. Sethi is currently an independent advisor and investor in the fields of information technology and finance with experience spanning academia, research, business and investment banking. Until recently, he was the chairman and chief executive officer of iPing, Inc., a notification company linking the Web and the telephone networks. Previously, he served as director and senior advisor to Barclays de Zoete Wedd, advising major global providers of information technologies to develop and execute corporate development opportunities. Prior to that, he spent seven years at Bell Laboratories in operations research and communications network planning and seven years in corporate finance at AT&T.

“We are delighted to welcome Dr. Sethi to our board,” commented Dr. Chadha. “He brings to us a wealth of experience specific to our stated mission of developing and marketing SAN transport technology.” Dr. Sethi holds a Ph.D. and MS in Operations Research, Economics and Statistics from UC Berkley, and is a graduate of the Executive Management Program from Penn State. He is an advisor to several high technology companies and serves on the Board of Directors of Aperian, Inc., Pamet Systems, Inc. and WorldWater Corporation.

JNI CLARIFIES INTENDED RETIREMENT OF ITS CEO

San Diego, CALIF. — JNI Corporation reaffirms previously disclosed information that President and CEO Terry M. Flanagan, Ph.D. has informed the company that he would like to retire. As previously disclosed in public filings and its Third Quarter Conference Call, JNI is actively engaged in a process to find a suitable candidate to replace Dr. Flanagan. “I am participating in the search process and plan to stay with JNI until a successor is found,” Flanagan said. “I have also agreed to provide consulting services to JNI for a period of 12 months following my retirement and intend to remain a member of the Board of Directors.”

In addition, a Dow Jones Newswire article reiterated information included in JNI’s public filings about Sun Microsystems intention to phase out the SBus interface from their systems and the potential impact on JNI’s business. SBus product sales account for approximately 80% of JNI’s current revenue. Sun Microsystems has never officially announced an end-of-life date for SBus in its servers, but in public forums certain executives from Sun have indicated that Sun would eventually move to the PCI bus interface or a successor to the PCI bus. Sun has recently introduced a new set of Enterprise servers that include the SBus interface. JNI is not aware of any plan by Sun to eliminate the SBus other than Sun’s past public statements. JNI’s SBus sales grew 32% from 2Q00 to 3Q00. “We believe the news story takes existing information and, unfortunately misstates its impact on JNI,” said Flanagan.

MANDRAKESOFT HIRES JAY BEALE

Altadena, CALIF. — MandrakeSoft S.A., publisher of the Linux-Mandrake operating system, announced the appointment of Jay Beale as Security Group Director. Prior to this appointment, Jay has helped guide the Bastille Linux Project as Lead Developer, where he was responsible for the design and development of the high profile Open Source project. He has led the effort to secure or “tighten” Linux systems and currently consults on general Linux security, from firewalling and VPN design to host-level lockdown.

Jay regularly writes articles on Linux/Unix Security and is currently writing an upcoming book called, “Securing Linux the Bastille Way.” Jay will coordinate MandrakeSoft’s security efforts, managing the security team and working to raise the bar on distribution security. He will help develop, design, and oversee additional Open Source projects, to be announced at a later day. Independent of his position at MandrakeSoft, Jay will continue to lead the Bastille Linux project and working on major architecture enhancements with MandrakeSoft’s Yoann Vandoorselaere. When completed, their work will allow Bastille to tighten security on many other distributions and Unix-based operating systems. “I’m very excited to be joining MandrakeSoft,” says Jay Beale. “We’ll be able to tighten security on a Linux distribution from the inside, raising the bar on Linux distribution security. I hope this will be a great win for Open Source software.” “In today’s environment where security has become very crucial, the appointment of Mr. Beale proves MandrakeSoft’s strong commitment to security issues,” said Jean-Loup Gailly, CTO of MandrakeSoft. “His expertise will enhance our background and responsiveness to security concerns and will establish MandrakeSoft as a leader in the Linux security field.”

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