Interphase to buy Cisco FDDI Adapter product line; deal ensures Cisco FDDI customers of continued product availability and support.

DALLAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 6, 1996--Interphase Corp. (NASDAQ/NMS:INPH), a leader in high-performance adapter cards for technologies including ATM, FDDI, and Fibre Channel, has signed an agreement to purchase Cisco Systems' FDDI network adapter card product line.

According to the agreement, Interphase will acquire the rights to all of Cisco's SBus and EISA FDDI adapters. As part of the deal, for a minimum of two years, Interphase will continue to supply current customers the same products with the same model number designations as they are buying from Cisco today.

Cisco will continue to offer SMARTnet customer support for these FDDI adapter models sold by Interphase. Interphase will be accepting orders beginning June 10, 1996 and Cisco will stop shipping their SBus and EISA FDDA products on July 28, 1996.

This agreement builds on a prior Cisco-Interphase relationship in which the two companies worked together to provide interoperability between Cisco ATM switches and routers, and Interphase ATM adapters. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

"Our primary goal in choosing an FDDI partner was to look out for the long-term interests of our customers," said Jayshree Ullal, director of marketing, Workgroup Business Unit, Cisco Systems. "Interphase is an ideal FDDI partner for Cisco because the company is well-established in the FDDI networking adapter card business. Interphase offers quality and long-term commitment to the FDDI NICs and our customer base."

According to Stephen Polley, Interphase president and CEO, the Interphase acquisition of the Cisco FDDI adapter line is significant for a couple of reasons. "The addition of the Cisco adapters adds complementary products to our existing FDDI portfolio, already the industry's broadest line of FDDI products available from a single vendor. This acquisition solidifies our leadership position in FDDI."

"Secondly, Cisco customers can continue to purchase, and receive support for, their existing FDDI adapters and driver software utilized on the SBus and EISA platforms in their FDDI networks."

SBus and EISA FDDI Cards

The Cisco EISA and SBus FDDI adapters feature high performance 32-bit wide architectures with 128K on-board packet memory, 128K flash memory, and utilize the Motorola 68340 processor for on-board SMT protocol handling. In addition, both adapters come in single attach (SAS) or dual attach (DAS) configurations with support for fiber or copper (CDDI) media connectivity.

Driver support for the SBus adapters includes SunOS and Solaris. The EISA adapters include driver support for NetWare, Windows NT, HP-UX, IRIX, and NDIS.

Product Support

"Both Cisco and Interphase are working to ensure customers that there will be a seamless transition of product and support," continued Polley. "With our leadership position in FDDI, customers will continue to see the expertise and service that this marketplace demands."

Customers will have several support options. Cisco and Interphase will cooperate on customer support for these products. Customers who purchased FDDI adapters from Cisco will have the option to obtain warranty support from either Cisco or Interphase. Cisco will continue to offer SMARTnet support agreements for these FDDI models, regardless of whether the adapters were purchased from Cisco or from Interphase.

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) is the leading global supplier of internetworking solutions for corporate intranets and the global Internet. Cisco's products, including routers, LAN and ATM switches, dial-up access servers and network management software, are integrated by the Cisco IOS software to link geographically dispersed LANs, WANs, and IBM networks. Company news and product/ service information are available at World Wide Web site http://www.cisco.com. Cisco is headquartered in San Jose, Calif.

Interphase Corp. is a leading supplier of desktop and server I/O products for high speed technologies including ATM, FDDI, Fibre Channel and Fast Ethernet. The company shipped the industry's first commercial FDDI adapter and today enjoys a majority marketshare for high end server FDDI interface cards. Interphase was recently ranked as the #2 supplier of ATM adapters in North America by Dataquest (June 1995).

Headquartered in Dallas, Interphase sells to OEMs, distributors, and systems integrators through a worldwide sales and service network. Additional information about interphase and its products is available at World Wide Web site http://www.iphase.com.

NOTE: SMARTnet is a trademark of Cisco Systems. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners.

CONTACT: Interphase Corp., Dallas

Michael Eckley, 214/654-5325; [e-mail]

or

Cisco Systems Inc.

Amanda Jaramillo, 408/526-7391; [e-mail]