BROOMFIELD, CO -- McDATA® Corporation (MCDT), a worldwide leader in open storage networking solutions, announced today that IBM Corporation (NYSE: IBM - news) will sell and distribute McDATA's 2Gb/s Intrepid(TM) 6000 Series Director, the world's first 2Gb/s Director. Beginning May 31, IBM customers will be able to enjoy the benefits of industry-leading investment protection, minimization of risk, ultra-high availability and high-speed performance. McDATA's Intrepid Director will be made available through a distribution agreement that also will include McDATA's entire core-to-edge family of 2Gb/s products, including its Sphereon(TM) 3000 Series 16- and 32-port Fabric Switches. The McDATA Intrepid surpasses all competitor offerings in terms of flexibility with its ability to handle both mainframe (FICON) and open systems (Fibre Channel) data traffic, as well as an architecture -- built on McDATA's common Extendable Open Network (EON(TM)) Architecture -- that will support upgrades to emerging technologies such as iSCSI, FCIP and InfiniBand. McDATA's full family of 2Gb/s storage networking products delivers to customers the end-to-end performance benefits of a complete 2Gb/s storage infrastructure, where all elements of the SAN are running at the industry's fastest available transfer rates. ``IBM and McDATA each have a long standing commitment to the delivery of world class storage solutions,'' said Jim Kelly, vice president marketing, IBM Storage Products Division. ``McDATA's 2Gb/s high availability Director should be very appealing to customers and we look forward to extending its unrivaled value to IBM's mainframe and open systems customers. Making available McDATA's 2Gb/s storage networking products enables IBM to meet and exceed the storage requirements of its customers -- from the small-to-mid size companies to very large enterprises.'' With the addition of McDATA's 2Gb/s Intrepid 6000 Series Director, IBM will offer the world's only: -- 2Gb/s Director-class storage networking product; -- 2Gb/s Director-class storage networking product qualified to handle traffic for both mainframe (FICON) and Open Systems (Fibre Channel) environments. ``SANs are increasingly becoming a vital and essential part of IT infrastructures for companies of all sizes. As this progression continues, McDATA and its partners such as IBM constantly strive to offer customers more cost effective and reliable ways to manage their critical information,'' said John Kelley, president and chief operating officer for McDATA. ``The flexibility of McDATA's 2Gb/s Intrepid 6000 Series Director, with the ability to be deployed in either FICON or Fibre Channel environments is unrivaled in the industry. The investment protection, reliability and simplified management of McDATA's storage networking products simply cannot be matched by any other offering in the market.'' For more information visit www.mcdata.com