Press Releases

2004

FORCE10 NETWORKS NAMED INVESTORS’ CHOICE AT PRESTIGIOUS NETWORK OUTLOOK CONFERENCE

MILPITAS, Calif., March 18, 2004 — More than 300 business leaders, venture capitalists, entrepreneurs and industry analysts selected Force10 Networks as Investors’ Choice at the recent Network Outlook Private Equity conference. The prestigious award recognizes the 10 private technology companies that are voted as best positioned for long-term success in the data communications industry.

“Network Outlook has a distinguished history of identifying late stage startups that go on to revolutionize an industry, including Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT), Dell and Sun Microsystems (Nasdaq: SUNW),” said Marc Randall, CEO of Force10 Networks. “This award is an extraordinary validation of our vision and commitment to revolutionizing high performance switching and routing technologies for the networking industry.”

During the two-day event, 72 companies presented their business plans to attendees, who selected the 10 Investors’ Choice companies. Network Outlook is an annual conference sponsored by VentureWire that explores the economic and technology issues impacting the data communications industry.

Force10 Networks was also recently singled out by Heavy Reading, Light Reading’s subscription report service, as a bright spot in telecom. According to the report, “Telecom Recovery Investment Opportunities,” Force10 is a likely candidate to reach the equity markets. The report examines the telecom recovery, attributing it to the revitalization of service providers. With increasing cash flow, service providers have the financial resources to begin deploying next-generation technologies.

Recently, universities, enterprises and telecom operators around the world have deployed the Force10 E-Series to increase network performance. Petroleum Geo-Services, an oilfield services company, is running its applications six times faster with the E-Series. Additionally, a number of international universities are leveraging the E-Series for 10 Gigabit Ethernet campus networks, including Korea’s Chung Cheong University and China’s Tsinghua University and Shenzhen University City. Hanaro Telecom, Korea’s second largest telecommunications carrier, has also deployed the Force10 E-Series in a countrywide backbone network upgrade to 10 Gigabit Ethernet.

The Force10 E-Series combines unmatched scalability with best-in-class resiliency to bring the network and application predictability required to maximize network performance. Fully distributed hardware and modular software deliver line-rate Gigabit and 10 Gigabit throughput across all ports regardless of traffic type or condition while built-in hardware redundancy guarantees performance continuity.

About Force10 Networks
Force10 Networks is the global technology leader that data center, service provider and enterprise customers rely on when the network is their business. The company’s high performance solutions are designed to deliver new economics by virtualizing and automating Ethernet networks.  Force10’s high density and resilient Ethernet switching and routing products increase network availability, agility and efficiency while reducing power and cooling costs.  Force10 provides 24x7 service and support capabilities to its global customer base in more than 60 countries worldwide.  For more information on Force10 Networks, please visit www.force10networks.com.

Contact:
Kevin Kimball
Force10 Networks Inc.
+1 408 571-3544
kkimball@force10networks.com

Force10 Networks, Force10, E-Series, Traverse, and TraverseEdge are registered trademarks and ExaScale, S-Series, TeraScale, and FTOS are trademarks of Force10 Networks, Inc.  All other company names are trademarks of their respective holders.