McDATA Qualifies Emulex's Newest LP10000 HBA with Its Sphereon Switches and Intrepid Directors


COSTA MESA, Calif., October 21, 2003 (PRIMEZONE) -- Emulex Corporation (NYSE:ELX), the world's leading supplier of storage networking host bus adapters (HBAs), announced today that its latest HBAs have been qualified by McDATA Corporation (Nasdaq:MCDTA) (Nasdaq:MCDT) for use with its Sphereon(tm) switch family and Intrepid(tm) Director family running Windows, Solaris and Linux operating systems. This recent McDATA qualification includes support for Emulex's LP10000 and LP10000DC HBAs, as well as the LP9802 and LP982 HBAs.

"McDATA's consistent delivery of high-performance storage networking solutions, paired with Emulex's innovative HBA technology, position the companies to continue offering robust SAN solutions that meet the demands of both mid-range and enterprise class customers," said Mark Stratton, director of Solutions and Alliances, McDATA. "McDATA's Intrepid and Sphereon product families, combined with Emulex HBAs, provide superior scalability and unique, high performance functionality for our SAN customers."

McDATA's Intrepid family of Directors, designed for organizations with extremely large data needs, serve as a powerful platform for building reliable storage networks. Additionally, McDATA Sphereon fabric switches provide the cost-effective fabric level features required by a large enterprise SAN. The Intrepid and Sphereon product lines offer uncompromised connectivity for flexible enterprise storage networks.

"The qualification of Emulex's new LP10000 HBA family by McDATA underscores the product family's broad interoperability, which highly scalable and flexible heterogeneous SANs require," said Mike Smith, executive vice president of worldwide marketing of Emulex. "Emulex works closely with McDATA to ensure its HBAs are compatible, ensuring delivery of industry-leading, advanced SAN technology."

The LP10000, LP10000DC, LP9802, LP9802DC, LP9002 and LP9002DC are fully compatible with drivers that incorporate Emulex's new centralized HBA management suite, HBAnyware, which features driver-based technology to enable complete management of Emulex HBAs and the ability to upgrade firmware anywhere in a SAN from a single console. Emulex HBAs feature a unique architecture that enables forward and backward compatibility with both new and existing SAN installations. In addition, Emulex HBAs offer a firmware upgradeable architecture that protects customers' investments in storage networking solutions, by enabling a simplified upgrade path without requiring hardware replacement.

Additional Emulex qualification information is outlined in the tested and approved section of the company Web site, which is www.emulex.com.

About Emulex

Emulex Corporation is the world's largest supplier and developer of storage networking host bus adapters. It was recently named one of Forbes Magazine's 25 Fastest Growing Technology Companies in 2002, and ranked number 15 in Deloitte & Touche's 2003 Technology Fast 50.

The Emulex product families are based on internally developed ASIC, firmware and software technologies spanning both Fibre Channel and IP networking protocols, and offer customers high performance, scalability, flexibility and reduced total cost of ownership. The company's products have been selected by the world's leading server and storage providers, including Dell, EMC, Fujitsu Siemens, Groupe Bull, HP, Hitachi Data Systems, IBM, NEC, Network Appliance, StorageTek and Unisys. In addition, Emulex includes industry leaders Brocade, Computer Associates, Intel, McDATA, Microsoft and VERITAS among its strategic partners. Additionally, Emulex and Intel, via a joint development agreement, are pioneering the industry's first storage processors for Serial ATA, Serial Attached SCSI and Fibre Channel interfaces within a single architecture.

Emulex markets to OEMs and end users through its own worldwide selling organization, as well as its two-tier distribution partners, including ACAL, Avnet, Bell Microproducts, Info-X, Netmarks, Tech Data, TidalWire and Tokyo Electron. Corporate headquarters are located in Costa Mesa, California. News releases and other information about Emulex Corporation are available at www.emulex.com.

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"Safe Harbor" Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995: With the exception of historical information, the statements set forth above include forward-looking statements that involve risk and uncertainties. The company wishes to caution readers that a number of important factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Those factors include the rapidly changing nature of technology, evolving industry standards and frequent introductions of new products and enhancements by competitors; fluctuation in the growth of Fibre Channel and IP markets; changes in economic conditions or changes in end-user demand for technology solutions; fluctuations or delays in customer orders; the highly competitive nature of the markets for Emulex's products; Emulex's ability to gain market acceptance for its products; the company's ability to attract and retain skilled personnel; the company's reliance on third-party suppliers. These and other factors which could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements are also discussed in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its recent filings on Forms 8-K, 10-K and 10-Q.

This news release refers to various products and companies by their trade names. In most, if not all, cases these designations are claimed as trademarks or registered trademarks by their respective companies.



            

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