Intransa Appoints Alan Kessler as President, Chief Executive; Network Storage Startup Taps Former Palm Executive

Business Wire, Sept 24, 2001

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 24, 2001

Intransa, a privately held firm developing a new generation of highly scalable network storage solutions, today named former Palm executive Alan J. Kessler to the position of president and chief executive officer. Kessler brings to Intransa more than 20 years of high-tech management, marketing and sales experience.

Most recently, Kessler served as chief operating officer and general manager of Palm Inc.'s platform and products group. At Palm, Kessler managed the company's industry-leading software division and played a key role in taking Palm public. He also maintained platform leadership for the handheld industry's top operating system and he helped to formulate the separation of the Palm OS division into an independent subsidiary.

Kessler spent 14 years in various general manager and senior executive roles at 3Com Corp. where he headed sales of enterprise-class system and network solutions, extending 3Com's reach into Fortune 500 companies. As senior vice president of global system sales, Kessler oversaw service operations to those top customers. Most recently, as senior vice president of global customer service, he played a pivotal role in turning around a customer service business unit that had been operating at a loss while at the same time leading improvements in customer response time and satisfaction.

"Alan's understanding of the needs of the enterprise customer make him a perfect fit for Intransa," said Eric Benhamou, chairman of the board. "The demand for scalable network storage solutions continues to grow, and we are thrilled to have assembled such a seasoned team to meet this need -- with Alan Kessler at the helm."

In June, Intransa completed its initial round of funding from Advanced Technology Ventures and U.S. Venture Partners. Kessler joins a team of world-class technology veterans on the Intransa board of directors, including:

-- Peter Wang, founder, chief technology officer and vice president.

-- Eric Benhamou, chairman of the board of 3Com Corporation, Palm Inc. and
Cypress Semiconductors, member of the Board of Directors Legato, Atrica Inc and
PITAC

-- Stephen Johnson, founder of Komag, president and chief executive officer of
the Slingshot Group.

-- Wes Raffel, general partner, Advanced Technology Ventures, and a 10-year
veteran of 3Com

-- Geoff Baehr, general partner, US Venture Partners, and a 13-year veteran of
Sun Microsystems, where he last served as chief network officer

"While my experience at Palm has been very rewarding, I look forward to the challenges and opportunities that face our new company," said Kessler. "I believe Intransa has developed a better way of providing highly scalable network storage solutions and will be the company to watch in this essential market."

Kessler has spoken as an expert in technology and management issues at conferences in Silicon Valley and around the world. He holds a Master of Business Administration degree from the University of California at Berkeley.

About Intransa

Intransa is developing solutions and technologies to radically reduce the complexity of organizations through enterprise level, networked storage solutions. Based on advanced technology that leverages the cost and performance advantage of Ethernet, Intransa's products will enable a new generation of high performance, scalable network storage services. For more information, visit www.intransa.com.