McDATA's SANavigator Recognized as Industry's Best in Rigourous SAN Management Test; SANavigator Management Software Awarded Network Computing's Editor's Choice

Business Wire, May 12, 2004

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

BROOMFIELD, Colo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 12, 2004

McDATA Corporation (Nasdaq: MCDTA)(Nasdaq: MCDT), the expert provider of multi-capable storage networking solutions, today announced that Network Computing Magazine has awarded McDATA's SANavigator(R) Management Software its prestigious Editor's Choice award. The esteemed, third-party recognition from Network Computing is based on independent review, and distinguishes SANavigator as the industry's top SAN management software platform.

The review of heterogeneous SAN management tools compared features such as design, compatibility, support, price, installation, configuration and scalability, and compared McDATA's SANavigator against other leading applications including Computer Associates' BrightStor SAN Manager and Softek's SANView.

"We found McDATA's SANavigator to be the most efficient SAN management tool and awarded it the Editor's Choice," said Howard Marks, Network Computing Real-World Labs reviewer. "SANavigator can help customers from the planning stage through monitoring and managing the finished system faster and more easily than the competition. SANavigator's polish and performance impressed us; the software lets you see every device on the SAN, get a quick view of both system status and utilization and manage your devices intuitively."

"McDATA is honored to receive such recognition from Network Computing, as it is a widely respected magazine with well-established testing procedures and un-biased reviews," said Jonathan Buckley, vice president of software platforms for McDATA. "This award further validates that SANavigator meets McDATA's design goals in regards to ease of installation, ease of use and ability to provide high customer value out of the box. SANavigator is unparalleled in its total SAN management capabilities, supporting small to high-end heterogeneous SAN's."

With this powerful management platform, users can keep a close eye on all multi-protocol SAN devices (from the host bus adapter (HBA's) to the array) and connections, configure them to meet the individual needs of their business and even resolve problems before they actually occur. SANavigator can help to proactively increase data availability, improve network response time, increase storage network security and help users move intelligence into the network.

About McDATA (www.mcdata.com)

McDATA (Nasdaq: MCDTA/MCDT) is the expert provider of Multi-Capable Storage Networking Solutions(TM) -- hardware, software and services -- that enable partners and customers around the world to reduce the total cost of storage management today, and be ready to adapt to the real-time information demands of tomorrow. Entrenched in over 8,000 data centers worldwide, McDATA solutions are at the heart of more than 80 percent of Fortune 100 storage network data centers, powering the latest e-business applications, customer databases, financial traffic and other mission-critical data. Customers leverage McDATA's multi-capable solutions to realize immediate cost savings, reduce their investment risk, ensure the continuity of their operations and adapt to changing business requirements.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains statements about expected future events that are forward-looking and subject to risks and uncertainties. Readers are urged to consider statements that include the terms "believes", "belief", "expects", "plans", "objectives", "estimates", "anticipates", "intends", "targets", or the like to be uncertain and forward-looking. Factors that could cause actual results to differ and vary materially from expectations include, but are not limited to, our ability to ramp SANavigator sales, our relationships with EMC Corporation and IBM and the level of their orders, the impact of the continued general economic slowdown on purchasing decisions by customers and capital spending, our ability to expand sales into higher margin channels through system integrators and distributors, a loss of any of our key customers (or our OEMs' key customers), distributors, resellers or our contract manufacturers, our ability to expand our product offerings and any transition to new products, (such as higher port count and multi-protocol products) integrate recent acquisitions and OEM qualification of such new products which may occur after the general availability dates, possible inventory charges that may occur with any transition to such new products, component quality and availability, the development of the storage area network and switch markets, competition in the storage area network and switch markets, aggressive pricing and product give-aways by competitors, one-time events and other important risk factors disclosed previously and from time to time in our filings at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. These cautionary statements by us should not be construed as exhaustive or as any admission regarding the adequacy of disclosures made by us. We cannot always predict or determine after the fact what factors would cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated by the forward-looking statements or other statements. All cautionary statements should be read as being applicable to all forward-looking statements wherever they appear. We do not undertake any obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.