Candera Launches Initiatives to Stimulate Channel Sales of Enterprise ATA; Offers Higher Margins and a Foothold in the Fast-Growing Enterprise ATA Market.

MILPITAS, Calif. -- Candera(TM), Inc., a company dedicated to simplifying the implementation of tiered storage environments by bringing intelligence into the network, today announced new channel initiatives designed to help its partners compete more aggressively with existing storage vendors in delivering innovative enterprise storage solutions to their customers. The company has committed to a 100 percent indirect channel-centric sales model, added 2 new resellers and a distributor, and has introduced a new comprehensive program to empower resellers to penetrate larger accounts and quickly increase revenues and margins. With the opportunity to sell the industry's first cost-effective enterprise-class storage solution based on Serial ATA (SATA) drives, resellers can now provide their customers with an "enterprise ATA" storage solution that is as scalable and reliable as Fibre Channel solutions at nearly 50 percent of the price. Moreover, the superior interoperability inherent in the Candera intelligent storage architecture will enable resellers to leverage their existing inventory and sell a wider variety of products to a broader customer base.

"Candera is the first company to enable economical Serial ATA to move upstream into the enterprise market," said Sundi Sundaresh, president and CEO of Candera. "With the unique Candera ATA Appliance, customers can now implement Serial ATA for up to 70 percent of all their data center storage. This technology is disruptive to conventional storage approaches and players. Candera's resellers gain the upper hand against entrenched storage suppliers in a rapidly growing market, where they can lead the adoption curve with innovative solutions, leading to higher revenues and better margins for our resellers."

Expanding Channel Network

As evidence of its commitment to a channel sales strategy, Candera has most recently signed Adexis and TekSolutions to the reseller program and has named Condre as its distributor. The company now has 13 regional and national resellers, representing 38 locations throughout the United States. The company's products -- the Candera ATA Appliance and the Candera SCE 510 network storage controller -- are ideal for indirect channels. Candera's products enable resellers to recommend, sell and deploy advanced tiered storage solutions to their customers with a heterogeneous mix of nearly any major server, storage or switch. Resellers can now develop deeper long-term customer relationships, and cross-sell and up-sell as their customers' storage environments change and grow.

"Adexis was the first integrator to sign on with Candera, and we have been really impressed with the level of support, quality of sales leads, and overall demand we're seeing for Candera's products," said Mike Trautman, vice president of sales for Adexis. "Candera is a very unique company that has treated the Adexis team as an extension of its own sales force. Their products are incredibly innovative, and the engineering and marketing support has been first class. It is unusual for an emerging company to have such dedication to its reseller partners."

Daniel Dale, principal at TekSolutions added, "We found Candera's reseller program to be very innovative and complete, particularly for an early company in a growing market. They have proven their commitment to the channel as the primary means for gaining customer traction."

Additionally, Candera has named Condre as its primary distributor for the Candera ATA Appliance and the Candera SCE 510 network storage controller. Under the terms of the agreement, Condre will facilitate the expansion of Candera's authorized reseller program and will jointly market Candera's ATA solutions to its existing and prospective reseller base.

"Tighter and tighter budget constraints and tremendous continuing growth in information storage are driving the demand for cost-effective, highly reliable, and easy-to-deploy enterprise storage solutions," said Condre vice president David Logelin. "Candera's enterprise ATA approach delivers the reliability, scalability and high performance most commonly found only in very expensive, monolithic Fibre Channel solutions."

New Reseller Program

To bolster its channel-centric sales model, Candera has launched a new reseller program comprised of an aggressive combination of marketing and lead generation programs, training, sales support, and incentive programs. There are two reseller levels in the Candera program:

--Platinum Reseller: A program for large regional or national resellers that includes system engineer (SE) certification training and joint marketing. Other features are presales support, direct engagement with Candera's sales and marketing executives, the Web reseller locator, full joint marketing rights and access to Candera's partner resources extranet for sales tools, marketing resources and training materials.

--Authorized Reseller: Designed for regional resellers with an application or industry focus, this program features the Candera reseller startup kit, as well as Webinar training and onsite technical training. Also included are direct involvement with Candera's sales and marketing executives, the Web reseller locator, usage rights for Candera's logo, and access to Candera's partner resources extranet.

Sales Accelerators and Margin Protection

Candera has also established an innovative collection of finance and incentive programs to arm its resellers to compete successfully in the marketplace against large storage vendors. These include:

--Reseller Demo Unit Leasing Program: This program offers up to 70 percent savings on the purchase of a Candera demo unit. It enables resellers to make low monthly payments, deferring the majority of the cost to the end of a six-month period.

--Opportunity Registration: This program gives resellers additional discounts on products and services when the reseller registers their sales opportunities. The program also provides dedicated pre- and post-sales support for the entire sales cycle.

--Candera Equipment Leasing Program: A cost-effective way for customers to evaluate and buy Candera ATA solutions with multiple leasing options available, including try-and-buy leasing, operating lease, capital lease, and custom leasing options.

About Candera

Candera, Inc. is dedicated to simplifying the implementation of tiered storage environments by bringing intelligence into the network. The company's innovative Candera SCE 510 network storage controller was the first product in the industry to move intelligence into the network, allowing enterprises to centrally manage tiered pools of heterogeneous Fibre Channel or ATA storage with high reliability. The Candera SCE 510 controller combined with low-cost ATA disks is available in a product called the Candera ATA Appliance, the first product to make ATA practical as a highly reliable, easy to deploy, flexible low-cost storage tier. Candera's solutions have been chosen by various Fortune 2000 customers representing the manufacturing, government, and digital media and entertainment industries. For more information about Candera, please visit www.candera.com.

Candera and the Candera logo are trademarks of Candera Inc. All other trademarks and product names are the property of their respective owners.