Avanex(R) Corporation to Announce New Platform Solutions at OFC/NFOEC 2008.

Proprietary Optical Platform Approach Attacks the Cost of Ownership for Long Haul, Metro, and Access Networks

FREMONT, Calif. -- Avanex Corporation (NASDAQ:AVNX), a pioneering provider of intelligent photonic solutions enabling next-generation optical networks, announced today that it would be unveiling several new platform solutions at the 2008 Optical Fiber Communication Conference and Exposition (OFC) to be held at the San Diego Convention Center, February 24-28, 2008.

The products to be announced at OFC will address critical needs for next-generation optical networking, including small form factor tunable transponders, tunable dispersion compensation for terminal equipment, X-cut and Z-cut lithium niobate modulators, tunable WSS/ROADMs, and lower cost, intelligent Oasis[TM] optical amplifiers. The complete value proposition represented by these new additions reflect the strengthening commitment of Avanex to combine proprietary technical approaches with a lean operating model for new platform solutions that deliver a host of OPEX reducing characteristics and features along with their basic technical advantages.

Speaking about the company's product platform focus, Avanex SVP and General Manager Pat Edsell said, "Our platform discipline focuses on common aspects of design that enable cost reduction -- wherever possible, we are rationalizing our product development around standard architectures. We are now meeting the customer demands for performance required for 40 Gb/s and 100 Gb/s applications, while continuing to drive cost out of our products and dramatically reduce our time-to-market for development. In addition, the approach also greatly simplifies our manufacturing world, decreasing lead times dramatically at the same time that we lower inventory costs."

Avanex SVP and CTO Giovanni Barbarossa amplified Edsell's point, focusing on the innovation facet of the platform play: "The products and solutions we are releasing are also much more than just cost-reduced solutions delivered through lean manufacturing. The common aspects of design in these platforms include characteristics and features to enable efficiency, tunability, flexibility, and scalability for customer applications that really go beyond previous definitions of agility. These include digital control blocks, programmable functions, real time monitoring capabilities, increased capacity through smaller form factors, and value-added synergies with other Avanex products, such as transmission plus tunable dispersion compensation for enhanced reach."

Summing up what to expect from the platform solutions to be unveiled at OFC, Avanex CEO Jo Major remarked, "After a period in which component and subsystem suppliers have focused diligently on cost reduction in their product lines, we are now moving aggressively to address carriers' intensive focus on systems capable of meeting growing capacity requirements in a cost-effective and elegant way. With these new products, Avanex is re-defining the way we deploy our broad IP portfolio as solutions, to help our customers catalyze the acceleration of their markets. The new emphasis for Avanex is to produce platform solutions that can play a decisive role in reducing dollars spent per bit transmitted."

About Avanex

Avanex Corporation meets the needs of fiber optic communications networks for greater capacity, longer distance transmissions, improved connectivity, higher speeds and lower costs. Our solutions enable optical wavelength multiplexing, dispersion compensation, switching and routing, transmission and amplification, and include network-managed subsystems. Avanex Corporation, incorporated in 1997, is headquartered in Fremont, California, and maintains facilities in New York, Florida, China, France, Italy, and Thailand. To learn more about Avanex Corporation, visit our Web site at: www.avanex.com.