Sitara and Wipro Infotech to Deliver QoS to India; Market Leaders to Lend Expertise to QoS Excellence Center, Address Bandwidth and VoIP Issues.

Business/Technology Editors

WALTHAM, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 2, 2001

Sitara Networks, Inc.(TM), the leading provider of solutions that intelligently integrate applications and networks for enterprises and service providers, and Wipro Infotech, India's leading IT firm and system integrator, today announced a partnership to jointly promote QoS in India, to effectively address bandwidth and quality of service issues. As a part of this initiative, Wipro and Sitara will approach key, heavy-bandwidth customer accounts in India and offer solutions to maximize return on investment by deploying QoS, while effectively addressing bandwidth problems.

Announcing the joint initiative, Wipro Infotech President Suresh Vaswani said, "Our partnership with Sitara Networks is in keeping with the needs of the emerging convergence era. India is poised to take off in broadband technologies, and Wipro Infotech is gearing up for the future requirements of the marketplace and our customers."

"Our patented Quality of Service products will bring value to businesses in India by optimizing existing bandwidth, thereby increasing their return on investment. This will help companies not only overcome bandwidth shortages, but also put them in control of their IT infrastructure by allowing them to set the priority of various types of traffic and applications," added Ehud Weizman, vice president, Asia Pacific Operations, Sitara Networks.

Sitara is a leading proponent of Quality VoIP, and provides QoS solutions that integrate application traffic and networks for enterprises and service providers. Sitara works closely with VoIP partners including Siemens Information and Communication Networks Group, and Quintum Technologies to promote this initiative worldwide.

The focus markets for the QoS initiative are Banking and Finance, Corporate & Government, Software Exporters, ISP and ASPs. As a part of the initiative, Wipro and Sitara will carry out a series of joint studies and presentations in key accounts and target markets to drive home the benefits of QoS for increasing return on investment, creating newer business opportunities and using speed as a key competitive advantage.

The two technology partners have also agreed to set up a "Sitara-Wipro Center of QoS Excellence" in India. "The QoS Excellence Center will be a critical resource base for Indian IT professionals and corporations aiming to achieve higher network performance, ensure the availability of mission critical applications, and deliver additional revenue-generating services to customers," said Weizman.

"We are trying to put an end-to-end resource under one roof so customers can determine for themselves the business advantage of deployment of Sitara solutions," said Vaswani. "This is a part of our ongoing exercise of being proactive to our customer needs, and ready with the right technology solutions just in time for newer applications," added Anand Padmanabhan, head - Sales & Marketing, Enterprise Products Division, Wipro Infotech.

Sitara's products have specific implications for VoIP in India, once it is legalized. Although VoIP deployment has been increasing the world over, the IP technology has not been widely accepted for business use due to call jitter, echo, delays, dropped calls and a lack of comprehensive IP traffic prioritization. Sitara's QoS products provide significant improvements in VoIP performance, as per an independent study conducted by Miercom. With Sitara's QoS technology, VoIP problems can be overcome at the outset, saving costs and putting India ahead of the learning curve.

About Wipro Infotech

Wipro Infotech offers end-to-end IT deployment solutions to suit every business need. Wipro Infotech offers a vast range of system integration solutions, products and services. Its product portfolio spans the entire range of IT-related components, from computers, software and printers, to networking products, storage devices and consumables. Wipro Infotech's solutions and products are backed by efficient after-sales support and other value-added services such as Facilities Management.

About the Sitara Networks Product Family

Sitara's product family leverages the company's integrated QoS platform and enables enterprises and service providers to deploy new e-business applications, protect critical application performance, and improve network efficiency. This QoS platform includes multiple tools that deploy automatically to manage a wide range of traffic types, and is built on open, industry-standard computing technology. Sitara's products, including QoSWorks(TM), QoSArray(TM), and QoSDirector(TM), are cost-effective, and can scale to incorporate future tools and techniques needed to manage the high traffic, mission-critical network and application demands of enterprises and service providers.

About Sitara Networks

Sitara Networks designs, develops, and markets a comprehensive, integrated suite of high performance quality of service networking products for enterprises and communications service providers. Sitara Networks' products are designed to address the inherent limitations of Internet Protocol, or IP, in order to optimize overall network performance, ensure the availability of mission critical applications, and ultimately allow service providers to deliver additional, revenue-generating services, on demand, with the level of services their customers require. Sitara Networks is also a leader in the enterprise QoS market by enabling e-business and protecting mission critical applications.

Sitara Networks is headquartered in Waltham, MA and operates subsidiaries in Canada, South America, South Africa, Europe, and Asia. More information about the company can be found on the Web at www.sitaranetworks.com.

Sitara Networks, Inc., Sitara, QoSWorks, QoSDirector and QoSArray are all trademarks of Sitara Networks, Inc. All other trademarks and registered trademarks are property of their respective owners.