Cabletron Systems Joins Growing Application Service Provider Industry Consortium.

Business/Technology Editors

ROCHESTER, N.H.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 2, 2000

Cabletron Joins Over 320 Companies in New Consortium Focused on

Driving Forward ASP Standards &Research

Cabletron Systems (NYSE:CS), a leading provider of communications solutions to the service provider market, today announced that the company has joined the fast-growing Application Service Provider (ASP) Industry Consortium, an international advocacy group dedicated to fostering greater understanding of, and guidelines for, the fast-emerging ASP segment of the computer industry.

Cabletron has a long history of delivering a wide range of content hosting solutions to some of the largest service providers in the world. By joining the ASP Industry Consortium, Cabletron will continue working with network service providers and independent software vendors to enhance its high performance and scalable traffic management solutions for large-scale application service provision.

The Massachusetts-based ASP Industry Consortium has grown quickly in only a few months. Launched with 25 companies on May 11, 1999 at Networld+Interop in Las Vegas, the consortium now has over 320 members. The consortium sponsors research, fosters standards and works to educate the marketplace about the benefits of the evolving ASP delivery model.

The consortium has formed four working committees, each developing individual operating plans; Education and Outreach, Research, Best Practices, and Membership. Committee work was launched at the first all-member meeting of the ASP Industry Consortium held in San Francisco in August 1999, and initial deliverables were announced at the consortium's second meeting in November in Colorado.

&uot;Application Service Providers are driving the next major inflexion point in the growth of the Internet economy,&uot; commented Richard Benwell, solutions marketing manager, Cabletron Systems. &uot;The ASP Industry Consortium provides a much needed forum to develop and deliver standards that will enable the adoption of new IT business models. In turn, this will allow end-users to focus on their core businesses while maintaining their competitive edge. Cabletron's SmartSwitch Router Layer 3 /4 products and content hosting solutions are already proving themselves in application service provider environments, and we are pleased to be able to further enhance our solutions with the work being undertaken in the ASP consortium.&uot;

About the ASP Industry Consortium

Founded in May of 1999, the Application Service Provider Industry Consortium is an advocacy group of companies formed to promote the application service provider industry by sponsoring research, fostering standards, and articulating the measurable benefits of this evolving delivery model.

The founding members of the ASP Industry Consortium include AT&; AristaSoft Corp.; Boundless Technologies, Inc.; Cisco Systems, Inc.; Citrix Systems, Inc.; Compaq Computer Corporation; Cylex Systems, Inc.; Ernst &Young LLP; Exodus Communications, Inc.; FutureLink Distribution Corp.; GTE; Great Plains Software; IBM Corp.; Interpath Communications, Inc.; JAWS Technologies Inc.; Marimba, Inc.; Onyx Software Corp.; SaskTel; Sharp Electronics Corp.; Sun Microsystems, Inc.; The Taylor Group; Telecomputing ASA; UUNET; Verio, Inc.; and Wyse Technology. Information on the ASP Industry Consortium is available on the World Wide Web at http://www.aspindustry.org. Alternatively, you can contact the consortium headquarters at: ASP Industry Consortium, Inc., 401 Edgewater Place, Suite 500, Wakefield, Mass. 01880; Tel: [phone].

About Cabletron Systems

Cabletron Systems, a premier provider of world-class networking solutions, delivers reliable network access and communications to millions of people worldwide. With scalable products designed for Global 1000 enterprise networks, service providers and small businesses, Cabletron is the e-business communications specialist in the Internet economy. Cabletron Systems products and services are used by leading Internet Service Providers including Mindspring, IntelliSpace and Cybertech Wireless, leading e-business retailers such as toysmart.com, government organizations such as NASA and thousands of enterprise, healthcare, manufacturing and financial customers around the world. Cabletron Systems also supports a global network of Synergy Plus authorized distributors and resellers who deliver award winning technology and services in their regional markets. Listed on the New York Stock Exchange for more than a decade under the symbol CS, Cabletron is an S& 500 index company. Cabletron's web site can be reached on the Internet at http://www.cabletron.com.