Force10 Grabs 27 Percent of Layer 3 Ten Gigabit Ethernet Market According to Dell'Oro Report.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

MILPITAS, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 13, 2004

Force10 Networks, a pioneer in scalable resiliency for high performance switching and routing, increased its 10 Gigabit Ethernet market share in the fourth quarter of 2003 at a faster pace than any other Layer 3 vendor, according to the most recent Ethernet switch survey from the Dell'Oro Group. Force10's share of the Layer 3 ten Gigabit Ethernet networking equipment market grew from less than 15 percent in the third quarter of 2003 to more than 27 percent in the fourth quarter.

"The market for 10 Gig technology is rapidly expanding beyond early adoption and into a new phase of widespread enterprise deployments, as evidenced by Dell'Oro's most recent report," said Andrew Feldman, Force10 Networks vice president of marketing. "Force10 was the first to deliver line rate 10 Gigabit Ethernet routing in September 2002, more than a year ahead of the nearest competitor. With this type of technology lead and the fact that the Force10 E-Series is the ideal combination of scalability and performance, Force10 is well positioned to benefit from the rapid adoption of 10 Gigabit Ethernet."

In the fourth quarter of 2003, Force10 announced new 10 Gigabit Ethernet deployments in telecommunications carriers, educational institutions, governmental organizations, and large corporations. In Korea, Hanaro Telecom deployed the Force10 E-Series in a countrywide network upgrade to 10 Gigabit Ethernet. In China, Tsinghua University and Shenzhen University City also deployed the E-Series to build 10 Gigabit Ethernet campus networks. Additionally, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois deployed the Force10 E-Series in phase two of the TeraGrid project.

According to the Dell'Oro Group's Five Year Ethernet Forecast, the 10 Gigabit Ethernet switch market will grow from $39 million in 2002, to $1.6 billion in 2007. Analysts expect that the early volume deployments of 10 Gigabit Ethernet will be on high-end modular platforms, such as the Force10 E-Series, in large campus backbones, inter-campus connections and larger data centers.

About Force10 Networks

Force10 Networks is the pioneer in scalable resiliency for high performance switching and routing. Based on a revolutionary system architecture that delivers best-in-class resiliency and massive scalability, Force10's E-Series switch/routers ensure predictable application performance, increase network availability, and reduce operating costs. Today, many of the world's largest Gigabit Ethernet and 10 Gigabit Ethernet networks depend on Force10 Networks. For additional information, please visit the company's website at www.force10networks.com.

Force10, E-Series, EtherScale and FTOS are trademarks of Force10 Networks, Inc. All other company names are trademarks of their respective holders.