Spectrum emerges as fastest growing enterprise management platform; Shipments grow ny more than 125%.

ROCHESTER, N.H.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 31, 1996 -- Already established as the industry's clear technological leader, Cabletron Systems' (NYSE: CS) SPECTRUM Enterprise Manager sprung forth in 1995 to become one of the most prominant market players among network and systems management platforms.

Now the fastest growing enterprise management solution, SPECTRUM more than doubled its shipments in the last year, extending its marketshare by a third from 13.2% to 17.6% according to preliminary market estimates by International Data Corporation.

SPECTRUM experienced its most rapid growth within the last six months, expanding its lead over IBM NetView's marketshare and closing ranks on established platforms HP OpenView and SunNet Manager.

Management platform shipments as a whole increased by 69% last year according to IDC, underscoring industry recognition that management has become a key customer requirement. For its part, SPECTRUM shipped 6,100 SpectroSERVER licenses, up from 2,700 in 1994, to double its total install-base.

Cabletron attributes its success in enterprise management to several different factors:

o technology leadership -- SPECTRUM's scalability has allowed it to make vast inroads within large-networked, Fortune 1000 companies. One such customer is the US Postal Service: "Distributing our management across multiple SpectroSERVERS has allowed us to quickly pinpoint a high volume of network and device level problems throughout our entire LAN and WAN infrastructure," said the USPS's program manager for telecommunications, Dan McPhillips.

o expansion into emerging markets -- SPECTRUM's inductive modeling technology is easily extended to manage new marketplace requirements. For instance, SPECTRUM is already being used to manage cable and telephony environments as well as network and systems requirements - all from the same screen.

o agressive marketing -- The SPECTRUM Test Drive offered HP, Sun, and IBM's management platform customers one single SpectroSERVER license free of charge to evaluate SPECTRUM 3.1 during the months of July, August, and September. The program stimulated hundreds of participants with a rapidly growing list of converts.

SPECTRUM is also a natural for the emerging domain management marketplace, in which management is distributed across a network in order to match organizational and business requirements.

According to Brian Burba of International Data Corporation, "With the impending introduction of distributed management platforms, Cabletron's early success in positioning SPECTRUM as both a domain and enterprise management server, and increasing vendor efforts to position low-end platforms as domain management components in an enterprise management solution, IDC believes the domain management server market segment is poised for rapid growth."

"Companies are choosing SPECTRUM to manage their networks because it is the only management platform on the market that supports their migration toward a fully distributed client/server computing architecture," said Patricia Chrystycz, Cabletron's director of marketing for systems and network management, "It makes no sense to manage this kind of environment with a monolithic network management platform."

Cabletron Systems Inc. is the largest company in the world dedicated exclusively to computer networking products and services. With corporate in Rochester, NH, the company has 90 offices around the world and 5,500 people. Cabletron develops, manufactures, markets and services high quality internetworking products as well as the industry's most advanced network and systems management software based on its Synthesis product framework. Cabletron directly services customer sites around the globe and provides 7 X 24 support coverage, with free telephone support.

A component of the S&P 500 index, Cabletron's common stock is traded over the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol CS. Over the last four quarters the company has reported record revenue of approximately $1 billion and earnings of $202 million. -0-

Cabletron's World Wide Web site can be reached on the Internet at http:// www.ctron.com.

Cabletron, SPECTRUM and SPECTRUM Enterprise Manager are trademarks or registered trademarks of Cabletron Systems. All other products or services found in this document are identified by the trademarks or service marks of their respective companies or organizations.

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