McDATA and QLogic Enable Global, Multi-Vendor SANs; Customer Options to Broaden as QLogic Blade Server Switches to Be Fully Interoperable With McDATA Fibre Channel Switches.

BROOMFIELD, Colo. & ALISO VIEJO, Calif. -- McDATA Corporation (Nasdaq: MCDTA)(Nasdaq:MCDT), the expert provider of multi-capable storage networking solutions, and QLogic Corporation (Nasdaq:QLGC), the company that powers storage area networks (SANs), today announced a comprehensive SAN initiative to increase enablement for OEMs, channel partners and SAN administrators that are building global, multi-vendor blade server environments. Powerful functions such as interoperability from core-to-edge, virtual routing, open exchange of management data, zoning, security and partitioning are all part of the SAN initiative.

Upon completion, seamless interoperability in native McDATA mode will be available across McDATA's full product suite, including Eclipse(TM), Sphereon(R) and Intrepid(R)-brand switches, and SANbox(R) brand switches from QLogic.

"Our research on companies' future spending plans makes it clear that blade servers will play a critical role in enterprises' future data center investments, so providers of SAN switching solutions must ensure compatibility between embedded Fibre Channel switches and existing enterprise SAN solutions," said Richard Villars, Vice President of Storage Systems at IDC. "This announcement is a clear response to customers' demands for growing and scaling their information architecture without sacrificing flexibility in selecting needed solutions."

QLogic will be the first switch vendor to interoperate with McDATA products in native mode. Based on full compliance with FC-SW standards, customers can now cost-effectively build core-to-edge global storage networks while benefiting from up-to-date hardware and software features and functionality.

"Customers want reassurance that past investments and investments they make today can answer their immediate infrastructure needs, yet address their expectations for tomorrow," said Jeff Vogel, senior vice president of worldwide marketing, McDATA. "Our technology partnership with QLogic enables on-demand data access through full interoperability while ensuring easy access to new functionality. This partnership will allow customers to deploy an architecture capable of secure access to data anytime, anywhere, and McDATA a timely entrance to new and emerging markets while focusing on our core business."

"Customers are asking QLogic for SAN routing solutions that span from core-to-edge," said Frank Berry, vice president of marketing, QLogic Corp. "The crux of QLogic and McDATA achieving switch-to-switch interoperability for global SANs is to include a wide range of switches in our global SAN initiative."

Powered by QLogic

Since 1993, over 50 million QLogic products have shipped inside servers, workstations, RAID subsystems, tape libraries, disk and tape drives. These products were delivered to small, medium and large enterprises around the world. Powering solutions from leading companies like Cisco, Dell, EMC, Fujitsu, Hitachi, HP, IBM, Network Appliance, Quantum, StorageTek and Sun Microsystems, the broad line of QLogic controller chips, host bus adapters, network switches and management software move data from storage devices through the network fabric to servers. A member of the S&P 500 and NASDAQ 100, QLogic was named to the following during fiscal year 2004: (i) Fortune's 100 Fastest Growing Companies list for the fourth consecutive year; (ii) Forbes' Best 200 Small Companies for the fifth consecutive year; and (iii) Business Week's list of 100 Hot Growth Companies. For more information visit www.qlogic.com.

SANbox and QLogic are registered trademarks of QLogic Corporation.

Note: All QLogic-issued press releases appear on the Company's website (www.qlogic.com). Any announcement that does not appear on the QLogic website has not been issued by QLogic.

About McDATA (www.mcdata.com)

McDATA (Nasdaq: MCDTA/MCDT) is the expert provider of Multi-Capable Storage Networking Solutions(TM) -- hardware, software and services -- that enable partners and customers around the world to reduce the total cost of storage management today, and be ready to adapt to the real-time information demands of tomorrow. Entrenched in over 8,000 data centers worldwide, McDATA solutions are at the heart of more than 80 percent of Fortune 100 storage network data centers, powering the latest e-business applications, customer databases, financial traffic and other mission-critical data. Customers leverage McDATA's multi-capable solutions to realize immediate cost savings, reduce their investment risk, ensure the continuity of their operations and adapt to changing business requirements.

Forward-Looking Statements 

This press release contains statements about expected future events that are forward-looking and subject to risks and uncertainties. Readers are urged to consider statements that include the terms "believes", "belief", "expects", "plans", "objectives", "estimates", "anticipates", "intends", "targets", or the like to be uncertain and forward-looking. Factors that could cause actual results to differ and vary materially from expectations include, but are not limited to, our ability to ramp SANavigator sales, our relationships with EMC Corporation and IBM and the level of their orders, the impact of the continued general economic slowdown on purchasing decisions by customers and capital spending, our ability to expand sales into higher margin channels through system integrators and distributors, a loss of any of our key customers (or our OEMs' key customers), distributors, resellers or our contract manufacturers, our ability to expand our product offerings and any transition to new products, (such as higher port count and multi-protocol products) integrate recent acquisitions and OEM qualification of such new products which may occur after the general availability dates, possible inventory charges that may occur with any transition to such new products, component quality and availability, the development of the storage area network and switch markets, competition in the storage area network and switch markets, aggressive pricing and product give-aways by competitors, one-time events and other important risk factors disclosed previously and from time to time in our filings at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. These cautionary statements by us should not be construed as exhaustive or as any admission regarding the adequacy of disclosures made by us. We cannot always predict or determine after the fact what factors would cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated by the forward-looking statements or other statements. All cautionary statements should be read as being applicable to all forward-looking statements wherever they appear. We do not undertake any obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.