SAN JOSE, CA and SANTA CLARA, CA -- (MARKET WIRE) -- Alacritech® Inc., the innovator of Dynamic TCP Offload™ technology, and NetXen Inc., a leading provider of breakthrough 10-Gigabit Ethernet (10GbE) technology and products, today announced that NetXen has entered into a licensing agreement with Alacritech whereby NetXen will be making use of Alacritech's TCP offload patents to deliver solutions for 10-Gigabit TCP Chimney Offload, a key ingredient of Microsoft's Windows Server® 2003 Scalable Networking Pack. As a result of this collaboration, NetXen plans to support TCP Chimney Offload across its complete line of 10GbE Intelligent NICs™.

The NetXen Intelligent NIC family is a new category of server networking solution for high-speed 10GbE networks. The NICs are software and firmware upgradeable, so server systems equipped with Intelligent NIC technology can readily evolve with changing market needs and adapt to different datacenter workloads. The solution brings new levels of performance to the datacenter, while giving IT managers unmatched flexibility and investment protection. Used in combination with Microsoft's TCP Chimney Offload architecture, the NetXen Intelligent NIC products can deliver wirespeed 10-Gigabit transfers and a 3X reduction in CPU utilization.

Alacritech's TCP patents are the basis of the SLIC Technology, a Dynamic TCP Offload architecture that is the first scalable architecture to offload network protocol processing such as TCP/IP from host software to silicon. By efficiently eliminating system and network bottlenecks and maximizing data movement through Ethernet-based networks, SLIC Technology significantly increases system, application and network performance, and enables scalable networking to 10 Gigabit and beyond.

"We are very pleased to be working with NetXen," said Larry Boucher, president and CEO, Alacritech. "It further demonstrates the extensibility of Alacritech's SLIC technology, a key component of next-generation scalable networking."

"We are firmly committed to bringing to market solutions that support Microsoft's TCP Chimney Offload architecture," said Govind Kizhepat, CEO, NetXen. "Our licensing arrangements with Alacritech will enable us to deliver highly scaleable solutions for Windows-based servers demanded in enterprise IT environments."

"With TCP Chimney Offload, Microsoft is laying the foundations that will enable Windows Server customers to more efficiently scale network performance to 10 Gigabits," said Henry Sanders, general manager, Windows Core Networking Group, Microsoft Corporation. "The NetXen-Alacritech relationship further bolsters the Scalable Networking ecosystem, which not only benefits our Windows Server customers but will also lead to a more rapid adoption of 10-Gigabit Ethernet in the enterprise."

For more information about Microsoft's Windows Server 2003 Scalable Networking Pack, please visit www.microsoft.com/snp.

About Alacritech Inc.

Alacritech Inc. is the world's leading supplier of standards-based scalable networking technology and solutions that enable the highest performance and efficiency in networked systems. As the first to envision a dynamic network protocol processing architecture that enables systems to scale to address ever increasing data and network speeds, Alacritech developed and patented the Dynamic TCP Acceleration™ that empowers the SLIC Technology® architecture. Alacritech's complete line of Accelerators, based on this architecture, optimize data delivery in servers, network-attached storage and iSCSI storage devices. SLIC Technology, the basis of industry-accepted TOE solutions, ships in storage and server products worldwide. Alacritech is a privately held company based in San Jose, California. For more information about Alacritech and its products, please visit the company's Web site at www.alacritech.com.

About NetXen

NetXen, Inc. is a privately held company that manufactures intelligent 10-Gigabit Ethernet networking chips that advance enterprise datacenter performance and agility. Founded in February 2002 by chip design veteran Govind Kizhepat, the company is headquartered in Santa Clara, Calif., with an office in Pune, India. NetXen's protocol- and OS-agnostic Intelligent NICs are designed for volume 10-Gigabit deployments and are targeted at server, storage, security and networking systems. Additional information about the company and its patented chip architecture is available at www.netxen.com.

Alacritech, the Alacritech logo, SLIC Technology, SLIC Technology logo, Accelerating Data Delivery and Dynamic TCP Offload are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Alacritech, Inc. in the United States.

NetXen, the NetXen logo and Intelligent NIC are trademarks of NetXen, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective holders.