INTERCONNECTS

Force10 Networks today announced that Tech Target's SearchNetworking.com has named the TeraScale E1200 as the enterprise switching and routing Product of the Year for 2004, giving it the gold award for the category. SearchNetworking.com recognized the TeraScale E1200 for its unparalleled combination of speed and quality, calling it "the Cadillac of this year's enterprise routers and switches category." "The TeraScale E1200 sets new industry benchmarks for reliability, performance and density, metrics that are critical to businesses that rely on their network for revenue," said Andrew Feldman, vice president of marketing at Force10 Networks. "This award is a validation of the more than two years of design and development to create a product that fundamentally alters network economics by combining density and resiliency." The SearchNetworking.com editorial staff, in conjunction with a team of users, industry experts, analysts and consultants selected winning products based on innovation, performance, value, functionality, ease of use, ease of integration and support. The Force10 TeraScale E1200 received excellent marks for its innovative functionality and the raw power of the system. In particular, SearchNetworking.com recognized the innovative design of the TeraScale E1200 noting, "In order to condense the width of the line cards to fit 16 in a chassis, Force10's engineers went back to the drawing board and developed a new way to accommodate more traffic in a single system, providing scalability for future growth." The Force10 TeraScale E1200 leads the industry in Gigabit and 10 Gigabit Ethernet densities, supporting 672 and 56 line-rate ports, respectively. With greater densities on a single system, the TeraScale E1200 enables network operators to process more traffic on a single system, reducing both capital and operational expenditures. Additionally, the Force10 TeraScale E1200 features built-in redundancy of all key components to ensure maximum system uptime while a five Terabit per second backplane provides capacity for future density upgrades. Recently Force10 has been recognized across the industry as the leading private company in the networking industry. Industry analyst group Gartner named Force10 a visionary in its 2004 Global Campus LAN Magic Quadrant. Force10 is the first company added to the quadrant in several years and the only private company included in the report. In March, Force10 was named Investor's Choice at the prestigious Network Outlook conference by more than 300 business leaders, venture capitalists, entrepreneurs and industry analysts. And in May, Red Herring recognized Force10 as a top private company transforming the technology industry.