Strategic Partnership of Leading Technology Providers Ensures Interoperability
of Best-of-Class Storage Solutions

McDATA's OPENready Interoperability Partner Program was developed specifically to address significant market demand to deploy McDATA switches at the core of customers' multi-vendor fabrics. Since proven interoperability is the key to reducing risk and time to SAN implementation, products from OPENready Partners eliminate the risk of testing solutions "on the fly" in customer data centers. A storage networking solution with the OPENready stamp of approval means customers can be assured of the solution's interoperability.

"NEC, with a diverse and perennial background in technology innovation, is an advocate for interoperability and understands its importance in achieving optimum performance in storage systems," said Matthew Wolken, director of enterprise storage solutions for NEC Corporation of America. "McDATA's OPENready program conducts some of the most extensive and rigorous interoperability testing designed to simulate customer environments. NEC's induction into this program is a testament to the ease of integration and outstanding reliability of NEC storage arrays and reaffirms our commitment to bringing superior product compatibility overseas to the North American storage market."

McDATA, a leading provider of data access solutions, has devised this qualification program to enable technology ecosystem partners like NEC to collaborate with the company to create scalable, interoperable, enterprise-grade solutions that meet the needs of today's increasingly complex and growing storage requirements. NEC's entry into this esteemed program will further bolster its close strategic partnership with McDATA to ensure that mutual customers receive the best direct-attach storage products for fault tolerant, non-fault tolerant, and IA64-bit servers available in the industry. The solutions that have been tested and approved include a wide range of products from both companies. These include NEC Storage models S1300, S1400, S1500, S2400, S2500 and S2800 in conjunction with McDATA's Intrepid 6000 series of directors and Sphereon 3000 & 4000 series of switches.

"Storage networking customers today have fundamental expectations - to be free to choose best-of-class solutions and avoid the vendor lock-in associated with homogeneous strategies," said Todd Oseth, McDATA chief operating officer. "With greater focus on data access, interoperability is extremely important, and our partnerships with leading technology providers like NEC are a crucial factor in this endeavor. Working with our partners to ensure thorough testing among all products is performed and documented, proves to be of great value to all involved."

Since the introduction of its first storage product in 1964, NEC has been a leader in manufacturing and delivering storage systems, developing successful generations of storage products and management software. NEC offers a complete line of disk storage systems, engineered for businesses of all sizes, ranging from entry-level products to high-end modular systems. NEC's storage systems are designed to provide exceptional performance, business continuity, high availability, reliability and scalability that meet rapidly evolving business needs. In addition, the entire storage offering addresses customer requirements for ease of use, low total cost of ownership, fully-tested solutions, and smoothly integrated hardware and software. NEC is dedicated to bringing more storage solutions to North America as future partnerships will continue to enhance product compatibility for its customers.

About NEC Corporation of America
NEC Corporation of America is a leading technology provider of IT, network and visual display solutions. Headquartered in Irving, Texas, NEC Corporation of America is the North America subsidiary of NEC Corporation (NASDAQ: NIPNY). NEC Corporation of America delivers technology and professional services ranging from server and storage solutions, digital presentation and visual display systems to biometric identification, IP voice and data solutions, optical network and microwave radio communications. NEC Corporation of America serves carrier, SMB and large enterprise clients across multiple vertical industries. For more information, please visit www.necam.com. NEC is a registered trademark of NEC Corporation. McDATA and OPENready are registered trademarks of McDATA Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Other product or service marks mentioned herein are the trademarks of their respective owners.
© 2006 NEC Corporation of America.

Contacts:
Beth Makosey
NEC Corporation of America
(408) 844-1320
beth.makosey@necam.com

Jason A. Tidwell
Voce Communications
(650) 228-5193
jtidwell@vocecomm.com