Agere Systems and Troika Networks Create Alliance


STORAGE NETWORKING WORLD, PHOENIX, Ariz. April 9, 2004 /Wi-Fi Technology News/- Agere Systems (NYSE: AGR.A, AGR.B), the No. 1 provider of integrated circuits (ICs) for high-density storage solutions, and Troika Networks Inc., a leading provider of the Network Storage Services Platform approach for SAN intelligence, announced a strategic alliance to jointly develop and bring to market next-generation storage area networking (SAN) technologies.

This announcement was made here at the Storage Networking World Conference, Troika Booth #PP-10.

The companies will bring to market new Fibre Channel storage networking solutions built for optimizing data management and protection applications and adding intelligence to the storage network. With these solutions, Troika and Agere will improve the performance and functionality of a variety of applications, including storage virtualization, continuous data protection, virtual tape and replication.

"We look forward to working closely with Agere to bring to market solutions that will greatly enhance the speed, reliability and scalability of how information is stored, accessed and moved within enterprise networks," said Bill Terrell, CEO and co-founder of Troika Networks. "Our relationship with Agere is further testament to Troika's technology leadership and the growing appeal of our approach within the network storage application market."

"An intelligent storage network infrastructure is required to realize the vision of a utility environment," said Nancy Marrone-Hurley, senior analyst, Enterprise Storage Group. "The alliance of Troika and Agere will accelerate the availability of next-generation applications that enable more advanced, intelligent SAN environments. Troika and Agere will provide solutions that help organizations reduce costs, more effectively protect data and lay the groundwork for a flexible, intelligent, on-demand environment."

The new solutions will build upon Troika's Accelera Network Storage Services (NSS) Platform to produce a next-generation application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) technology base that will be leveraged into several new products. New chips will leverage Agere's ASIC silicon expertise in 130 and 90 nanometer process technologies, including Agere's advanced serializer/deserializer (SerDes) circuitry.

Necip Sayiner, vice president of Agere's Networking ICs business said, "We believe our alliance with Troika will result in a series of higher-quality SoC products that will allow SAN customers to leverage our state-of-the-art Fibre Channel technology and bring their products to market faster."

Agere has one of the broadest portfolios of SerDes and high-speed interface technology in the semiconductor industry. Agere's interface portfolio for storage applications offers integration into systems on a chip (SoCs) compliant with standards including 1, 2 and 4 Gigabit Fibre Channel, and 1.5 and 3 Gb/s SATA and SAS.

About Agere Systems

Agere Systems is a premier provider of advanced integrated circuit solutions for high-density storage, wireless data and multiservice networking applications. The company is the market leader in providing chips for desktop, mobile and consumer electronics hard disk drives. Agere's wireless data portfolio includes industry-leading solutions for data-capable cellular phones, as well as Wi-Fi/802.11 solutions for wireless LANs and computing applications. Agere also provides custom and standard networking solutions to move information across wired, wireless and enterprise networks. Agere's customers include the leading PC manufacturers, wireless terminal providers, network equipment suppliers and hard disk drive providers. More information about Agere Systems is available from its web site at http://www.agere.com.

About Troika Networks

Troika Networks is the leading developer of the Accelera Network Storage Services Platform, which enables enterprises to leverage a new generation of advanced data management and protection solutions. Troika's affordable network-based platform is designed specifically for optimizing storage applications, giving customer unprecedented flexibility in choosing what new capabilities to add to their networks, while leveraging their existing infrastructure investment. For more information on the Accelera NSS Platform and Troika's technology please visit http://www.troikanetworks.com or contact the company at info@troikanetworks.com


Contacts:

Steven Goldsmith (Agere Systems)
610-712-6737 (office)
484-553-0419 (mobile)
goldsmith@agere.com

Kim Amsbaugh (Troika Networks)
650-480-4037 (office)
kamsbaugh@eastwick.com