Akroria Networks, Inc. Hires Top Tyco Engineering Executive.

Business Editors

FREMONT, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 8, 2001

Akroria Networks, Inc., a leading, next-generation optical components supplier to the DWDM telecom market, today announced that John R. Rowlette Sr. has joined its management team as vice president of Engineering. Rowlette will manage Akroria's engineering functions as the company continues its rapid expansion to meet growing market opportunities in the optical component marketplace. Rowlette will be based in Akroria's headquarters office in Fremont.

A veteran of the telecommunications industry with over 20 years of experience in engineering management, and research and development, Rowlette joins Akroria from Tyco Electronics, a division of Tyco International, Ltd., where he held the position of director of Engineering for Tyco's Passive Optical Products Group. At Tyco, Rowlette was responsible for the development of all new optical products and advanced optoelectronic packaging technologies for these products. His responsibilities also included developing advanced DWDM components and subsystems and successfully launching them in a highly competitive market.

As vice president of Engineering, Rowlette is responsible for Akroria's strategic product development and product planning. "Akroria has the proprietary technology that will solve the metro bandwidth bottleneck affordably with scalable optical components," said Rowlette.

"John joins us continuing a highly successful career and bringing exceptional expertise and experience in the telecommunications and optics industries," emphasized Vishal Verma, Akroria's president and COO. Steve Pearse, Akroria's chairman and CEO, noted, "John's broad experience in developing new optical products and implementing their transition to high volume manufacturing makes him the ideal individual to drive Akroria's product development and manufacturing processes."

Rowlette currently holds 23 issued patents. He holds a B.S. in Physics from the University of Louisville, Louisville, Ky, and has completed graduate studies in Theoretical Physics at Wayne State University, Detroit, Mich. He is a member of IEEE, SPIE and OSA.

About Akroria Networks, Inc.

Akroria Networks is currently developing the next-generation Optical Cross Connect (OXC) and switching components. Akroria's core technology provides a quantum breakthrough in component-level price/performance and manufacturability, which will accelerate the adoption and realization of all-optical systems and networks. This core technology enables Akroria to build and supply components with very high performance switching (<3ms), very low losses (<1dB typical) and high reliability (99.999%) in the form of very small MEMS-scale devices. For additional information about Akroria Networks, visit www.akroria.com.