CIENA Selects Marimba's Castanet as a Vehicle for Efficient Delivery of Customer Care, Fiberoptic Tool Set.

Business Editors

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 17, 2000

Marimba's Castanet Supports Fast, Reliable Delivery of

Key Fiberoptic Diagnostic Tools To Mobile Service Technicians

Marimba(R), Inc. (Nasdaq:MRBA), a leading provider of Internet infrastructure management solutions, today announced that CIENA Corporation (Nasdaq:CIEN), the leading provider of optical networking systems for telecommunications companies, has selected Castanet(R) to serve as the backbone for delivering a new family of business-critical customer care tools to mobile field service technicians.

"We wanted to leverage the delivery system used to provide our fiberoptic diagnostic tools, called SmartTools(TM) to field service staff when they do not have direct access to the corporate intranet," said Jim Galligan, CIENA's director of Customer Information Technology. "With the help of Marimba's Castanet, we now expect to achieve that goal."

The key to delivering SmartTools to the field was finding the most efficient way to provide fast access to the Java applet required. Downloading the applet each time the tools were required was not an acceptable alternative because of the time it would take, but sending it out on a disk or CD was equally unsatisfactory because CIENA revises the applet every four to six weeks.

To resolve these issues, CIENA plans to implement Castanet, which will automatically download the first version of the SmartTools applet to a field service technician's PC, and then automatically update the applet whenever revisions are available.

"We selected Castanet for this application for several reasons, not the least of which was how it performed up close in our own environment," said Galligan.

Specific features of Castanet that were important to CIENA included the ability to communicate through firewalls and to be used in a disconnected mode by field service technicians who may have only intermittent access to the Internet. In addition, Castanet provides remote management capabilities that should make it easier for CIENA technical support staff to resolve any issues that may arise with the use of SmartTools.

About Marimba

Marimba is a leading provider of Internet infrastructure management solutions, enabling companies to leverage the Internet to deliver more powerful and cost-effective applications and services to their customers, employees and business partners. Marimba's Castanet product family provides an efficient and reliable infrastructure by which enterprises can distribute, update and manage applications and content over corporate intranets, extranets and the Internet. Marimba's Timbale product family addresses the unique management challenges inherent in server-based computing, including content replication and precise deployment control across heterogeneous server platforms. Marimba is headquartered in Mountain View and can be reached at 650/930-5282, via email at [e-mail], or at its Web site at http://www.marimba.com.

This press release contains forward-looking information within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and is subject to the safe harbors created by this section. These forward-looking statements concern, among other things, Marimba's announced customer's plan to use Castanet to deliver a family of tools to mobile technicians and the specific technical and performance benefits Marimba's customer expects to achieve with Castanet, including fast and reliable automatic downloads and updates. Those results are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, including: the remaining time and effort required to complete the customer's deployment, which could be greater than expected; technical challenges specific to the customer's implementation, which could impact whether the customer is able to achieve expected benefits with Castanet; and other business factors particular to the customer which could impact whether the customer continues to use Castanet in the future. Actual results may differ materially due to these and other factors. The matters discussed in this press release also involve risks and uncertainties described from time to time in Marimba's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In particular, see the Risk Factors described in Marimba's final Prospectus dated April 29, 1999 for its initial public offering as well as its most recent Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q. Marimba assumes no obligation to update the forward-looking information contained in this press release.

Note to the Editors: Marimba and Castanet are registered trademarks and Timbale is a trademark of Marimba, Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries. All other product, trademark, company, or service names mentioned herein are the property of their respective owners.