TOKYO, JAPAN- TIS Inc., Emtorage Broadcommunications Inc., TOKYO ELECTRON LTD. (TEL), Brocade Communications Systems K.K., and VERITAS Software K.K., independent storage products and services providers in Japan, announced today that they have joined forces under a project named "B-cube (Broad-Band Backbone) Interoperability Project" to establish Japan's first storage enviroment-independent interoperability center to facilitate deployment of Storage Area Networks (SANs) containing multi-vendor equipment.

As companies expand their SAN deployments to span increasingly heterogeneous environments, end to end interoperability across the storage environment is crucial. The new B-cube interoperability center will provide solutions ranging from testing to consultation services that encourage companies to make use of large-scale SAN environments for broadband networks. By creating an open interoperability center, TIS, Emtorage, TEL, Brocade, and VERITAS Software are working to speed adoption of storage networking in Japan by offering systems integrators, partners, and their customers the opportunity to leverage a heterogeneous test bed to qualify configurations and perform troubleshooting.

In Japan, the market for open storage systems is estimated to be as large as 250 billion yen; folding related software, consulting services, and maintenance services into this figure results in a market estimated to be about 350 billion yen. Demand for data management systems which apply to broad-band networks is projected to rise to 560 billion yen in 2004. The Participants will share customers, inspection data, and technology know-how from this project, which will enable them to enlarge their business to estimated combined sales of 56 billion yen in 2004, or 10 % of the storage market.

In Tokyo, the current expansion of the Metropolitan Area Network (MAN) has enabled high speed, high capacity (40Gbps) data communication. This expansion has in turn increased the demand for SANs that are compatible with MANs in the fields of finance, IT, and public service industries that require strategic, efficient management of enormous amounts of data. Moreover, SANs form a scalable, reliable, manageable, and secure networking foundation for business continuance applications such as remote mirroring and backup and high availability.

B-cube will put forth an initial investment of approximately 400 million-yen in the areas of facilities, hardware, and software to establish the Interoperability Center to be located within one of TIS's iDC buildings in Tokyo. In the long term, the companies expect to invest up to 3 billion-yen to meet increasing demand for testing and consulting services in Japan.

The B-cubed Interoperability Center will open in November 2001; testing and consultation services will be available from December 2001.

About TIS Inc.

TIS Inc. is a major system integrator in Japan, providing the three business segments as a independent prime contractor, i.e., 1. Outsourcing services, 2. Software Development, and 3. Solution Services.

TIS Inc. has core competencies in system operations like credit card settlement operations.

Recently emphasis on e-business such as Web site construction and Internet data center (iDC) business.





About Emtorage Broadcommunications Inc

Emtorage Broadcommunications Inc, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Softbank EC holdings K.K., was established on August 2001. Emtorage Broadcommunications Inc. will develop and sell the content-distribution platform as well as network and storage solutions, which will enable processing of heavy data resulting from the pervasion of broadband network.





About Brocade

Brocade (Nasdaq: BRCD) offers the industry's leading intelligent platform for networking storage. The world's leading systems, applications, and storage vendors have selected Brocade to provide a networking foundation for their SAN solutions. The Brocade SilkWormR family of fabric switches and software is designed to optimize data availability and storage and server resources in the enterprise. Using Brocade solutions, companies can simplify the implementation of storage area networks, reduce the total cost of ownership of data storage environments, and improve network and application efficiency. For more information, visit the Brocade website at www.brocadejapan.com.

Brocade Communications Systems K.K., headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, is 100% subsidiary of Brocade Communications Systems, Inc., established in May 2001.





About VERITAS

VERITAS Software, the top performing Data Availability Company, offers its customers business without interruption. VERITAS provides software solutions that give customers full command over their business-critical data, providing data access across diverse server, operating system, storage, and network environments. VERITAS Software is committed to providing customers with business solutions that offer maximum performance and scalability.