Ceon Corporation Appoints Two Industry Veterans to Board of Directors; Howard Charney of Cisco and A. Brooke Seawell Add Expertise in Networking, Enterprise Software and Finance

Business Wire, Sept 30, 1999

REDWOOD CITY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 30, 1999--

Ceon Corporation(TM), formerly FirstTel Systems, a pioneer in providing solutions that allow carriers to rapidly provision, bundle and manage multimedia services, today announced that industry veterans Howard Charney of Cisco and A. Brooke Seawell have joined the Ceon Board of Directors.

"Howard and Brooke are incredibly valuable assets to our Board," said Tim Fritzley, CEO of Ceon. "They bring vast experience in starting and managing very successful companies. The pace of convergent service rollout will require high growth at Ceon. Howard and Brooke will provide the necessary guidance and insights to help steer the company. While each brings unique industry expertise to the table, they both possess a clear grasp of the incredible opportunities presented by the converging telecom and cable marketplace and are committed to our vision of making Ceon the market leader in convergent service delivery."

Charney Brings Networking Experience

Charney is Senior Vice President of Cisco Systems, Inc. and a member of Cisco's Office of the President and Executive Staff. Previously, he held the position of senior vice president of the small-medium business division of Cisco. A prominent networking executive, Charney was the founder, president and CEO of Grand Junction Networks, the company that invented Fast Ethernet. It was acquired by Cisco in 1995. Charney was also a founding member of 3Com. He holds BS and MS degrees from MIT and MBA and JD degrees from Santa Clara University.

Seawell Brings Background in Operations and Finance

Seawell, now retired, served as executive vice president and chief financial officer of NetDynamics, Inc., an Internet application server software company. He also served as senior vice president and chief financial officer of Synopsys, Inc., an electronic design automation software company. He built the company from $30 million in revenue to more than $400 million and brought it public. Seawell holds a BA and an MBA from Stanford University. He serves on the boards of Accrue Software, Inc., Informatica Corporation, Mediaplex, Inc., NVIDIA Corporation, as well as the boards of several privately held companies.

The appointments of Charney and Seawell expand the Ceon Board of Directors to nine members. Other Ceon Board Directors include: James V. Rhode, Founder and Vice Chairman, Ceon; Tench Coxe, General Partner, Sutter Hill Ventures; Robert Horne, Vice President, Business Development, Nortel Networks; Robert L. Barada, Vice President, Pacific Telesis (ret.); Richard Kimball, Founding Partner, Technology Crossover Ventures; and George H. Sollman, President and CEO, Arabesque Communications, Inc.

About Ceon Corporation

Founded in 1982, Ceon has been a key player in the service fulfillment market, with more than 17 years of experience building mission-critical Operations Support Systems (OSS) for leading global telecom service providers including British Telecom and Cable and Wireless. Ceon delivers real e-business solutions that empower service providers to bundle, provision and manage multimedia services.

Ceon solutions integrate service providers' disparate OSS elements, resulting in rapid implementations, reduced service delivery times and improved customer retention. A privately held company headquartered in Redwood City, Ceon Corporation also has offices in Europe and Asia.

For more information, visit the Ceon Web site at http://www.ceoncorp.com.