ISDNet Inc. Formed to Enter Exploding Market for ISDN-Based Remote Access Products.

SUNNYVALE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 17, 1996--A new company named ISDNet Inc. has been formed to enter the exploding market for remote access products based on Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) technology.

A joint venture of Furukawa Electric Company Ltd. of Tokyo, and CoSystems Inc. of Sunnyvale, the company today introduced its first product, the NetRouter 1080 remote hub/router, and plans to introduce more products during the second half of 1996. (See accompanying product introduction release.)

"ISDNet's mission is to eliminate communications barriers by using ISDN lines to provide easy global access to computing resources," said Shirish Patel, chairman and president of ISDNet. "There's a growing need to network the PCs and Macs in remote and branch offices and to incorporate them into corporate networks, and to connect home offices to the Internet and World Wide Web.

"Yet, until recently, it has been difficult to fill this need cost-effectively. We expect the availability of ISDN-based remote access products will completely transform the way small branch and remote offices communicate with the larger world. And ISDNet intends to be at the forefront of that transformation."

Basic rate interface ISDN technology offers two separate B channels at speeds of 64 Kbps or 2 B channels at 128 Kbps. Compressed data can be sent at 256 Kbps. All of these provide the ideal communications solution for branch and satellite offices, remote operations and small offices.

Typically, these offices can't afford high-speed leased digital facilities such as 56K and T1 lines. Dial-up analog lines are inexpensive, but so slow they require lengthy transmission sessions to send and receive information, which drives up costs. ISDN is up to five times faster than modems, retains the dial-up and switching capabilities of analog lines, and costs significantly less than leased digital lines.

Synergy of Joint Venture

"ISDNet benefits from the tremendous synergy created by the complementary strengths in data communications hardware and software that Furukawa and CoSystems bring to their joint venture," said Patel. "We believe this synergy will result in products offering exceptional price/performance to a value-driven market."

ISDNet's first product, the NetRouter 1080, is based on Furukawa's INFONET 3740 hub/router, which employs an ISDN protocol stack licensed from CoSystems. The INFONET 3740, sold in Japan for the past two years, has successfully competed against products from leading U.S. and Japanese vendors.

Furukawa Electric is a worldwide, diversified conglomerate with sales of $5.7 billion in 1995. It has operations in areas such as fiber optics, cable, materials, and communications equipment, including hubs, routers, bridges, adapters, and cables.

CoSystems is a privately-held U.S. company that specializes in data communications technology. It supplies LAN/WAN protocol stacks, including ISDN, Frame Relay, Multi-Link PPP, and X-25. In addition, CoSystems has exclusive marketing and technical support agreements with Sun Microsystems and AT&T Microelectronics (Lucent Technologies) for the DBRI ISDN chip that Sun and AT&T jointly developed.

Focus on Exploding Branch, Small Office Market

"ISDNet is concentrating its efforts on meeting the specific price/performance needs of branch, small, and home offices," said David Dembitz, vice president of sales and marketing at ISDNet.

This market has exploded in recent years, fueling a significant growth rate in remote router sales. In fact, remote routers are growing at the fastest rate in the general router market, according to International Data Corp., a Framingham, Mass.-based market research company, and unit shipments for routers in general are expected to be in the double digits for the next few years.

In North America, remote routers based on ISDN emerged as a significant segment of the market in 1994. According to a report from MSI Channel Research & Consulting of Seattle, 2 million ISDN lines will be installed by 1997, and the market for ISDN solutions is forecast to reach $7.66 billion.

Nearly 91 million U.S. phone lines are capable of using ISDN technology in the upcoming years.

The management team running ISDNet includes Shirish Patel, chairman and president of ISDNet, and David Dembitz, vice president of sales and market. Patel is also the chief executive officer and president of CoSystems Inc., which he founded as a consulting organization in 1981.

Patel spent 12 years in Europe as a computer science and data communications engineer before coming to the United States, working for the Plessey Company in London, for Litton in Rome, and for MBB in Munich. Patel holds a B.S. degree in electronics and computer science from Southhampton University in England and a masters degree in computer science from the University of Manchester.

Dembitz previously was senior manager of worldwide sales at SynOptics Communications Inc., (now called Bay Networks) and an independent consultant to companies such as Teledyne Electronic Technologies and ESL/TRW Corp. He also spent 13 years with Unisys/Burroughs in a variety of sales management positions.

He received his MBA from University of Utah and two bachelor degrees, one in economics and the other in management, also from the University of Utah.

ISDNet Inc., headquartered in Sunnyvale, was founded on January 1, 1996. The mission of the company is to eliminate communications barriers by using ISDN technology to provide easy global access to computer resources.

ISDNet is focusing its efforts on the burgeoning market for remote access products used by branch, small, and home offices to communicate internally as well as externally to the corporate network, the Internet, and the World Wide Web. The company is a joint venture of Furukawa Electric Company Ltd. of Tokyo, and CoSystems Inc. of Sunnyvale.

CONTACT: ISDNet Inc., Sunnyvale

David Dembitz, 408/522-5092

or

Martell Communications, San Jose, Calif.

Colleen Martell, 408/252-2913