Monday May 8, 6:59 am Eastern Time
Company Press Release
F5 Networks Expands BIG-IP Product Family with Four Special Purpose Appliances and Introduces Easy Start Program
LAS VEGAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 8, 2000--
NetWorld Interop 2000
Products offer both small companies and large enterprises
cost-effective, hassle-free ways to address load balancing and
high availability needs
F5 Networks, Inc. (Nasdaq:FFIV - news), the leading provider of Internet traffic and content management (iTCM) products, today announced that the BIG-IP© Controller Family has expanded with the addition of four new special purpose iTCM appliances, each priced under $10,000.
Three of the four products are designed to provide load balancing and high availability for a specific type of network device including firewall, web, and cache servers. The fourth product handles SSL encryption and centralizes SSL traffic management, enhancing speed and traffic management functionality for secure online transactions. As part of the announcement, the Company has rolled out the F5 Easy Start Program that enables customers to easily leverage these new BIG-IP products through low monthly recurring charges.
``Traffic management applies to much more than just web servers. It also optimizes the availability and scalability of other network components such as firewalls, caches, and can help accelerate the notoriously slow SSL encryption process,'' said Ken Lam, Lead Engineer at Fuentez Systems Concepts, Inc. ``F5 Networks' special purpose network appliances are ideal for both small and large organizations who want to ensure the highest reliability and best performance of their overall network.''
This announcement rounds out the BIG-IP branded family of products to address the requirements of all e-Businesses, from start-ups to large enterprises. For small companies, F5's new products and Easy Start Program offer a simplified way to build a best-of-breed infrastructure to support their growing business needs. For larger enterprises, the new appliances provide a cost-effective solution to address very focused needs such as firewall and cache load balancing, as well as centralized SSL endpoint management. The expanded BIG-IP family of products, in addition to F5's other brands (3-DNS©, SEE-IT(TM), and GLOBAL-SITE(TM)), give e-Businesses of all sizes the necessary iTCM tools to help ensure that their site renders the best performance and delivers the right content, fast.
The new additions are based on F5's award-winning BIG-IP Controller and leverage its key strengths of providing Internet traffic management and high availability for Internet infrastructures. The BIG-IP family has been expanded to include:
BIG-IP Fire Guard -- Provides load balancing and high
availability of firewalls
BIG-IP Load Balancer -- Provides load balancing of Internet
servers
BIG-IP Cache Controller -- Provides load balancing and high
availability of cache servers
BIG-IP e-Commerce Controller -- Manages SSL encryption and
centralizes SSL traffic management. This is a separate product
from the SSL Accelerator recently announced in April, which is
an optional card that can be added to a BIG-IP controller.
F5's Easy Start Program offers customers an attractive financing plan to help them easily get started and take advantage of the new special purpose iTCM appliances. The program is offered directly through F5, with no third-party involvement, and offers simple terms: (1) Monthly charges of $795/month over a 12 month period; (2) Applies to BIG-IP special purpose appliances only; and (3) First and last payments due up front. At the end of the period, customers may renew their payment program at an adjusted rate or purchase the product.
``Many emerging companies and small businesses cannot afford the initial capital outlay that's required to build a top notch, industrial strength network infrastructure to support their online initiatives,'' said Steve Goldman, senior vice president of sales, marketing and services at F5 Networks. ``These new products, together with F5's payment program, offer companies a simplified way to build and finance a best-of-breed infrastructure. Our well-established, large enterprise customers also need these special purpose iTCM appliances in order to cost-effectively fulfill a specific requirement, whether it's increasing the scalability of their firewalls or whether its load balancing a group of cache servers.''
Pricing and availability
The BIG-IP special purpose iTCM appliances will begin shipping in the second quarter calendar year 2000, with the exception of the BIG-IP e-Commerce Controller, which will begin shipping in the third quarter 2000. Each of the special purpose products will be priced under $10,000. The F5 Easy Start Program will commence when the products begin shipping in the second quarter.
About F5 Networks
F5 Networks is the leading provider of Internet Traffic and Content Management (iTCM) products. The Company's integrated suite of high-performance products automatically and intelligently manage Internet traffic and content to improve the availability and performance of mission-critical Internet servers and applications. F5 Networks helps companies avoid the risk of being burdened with ill-performing networks that do not meet end user expectations, while enabling network administrators to better control and predict the performance of their infrastructure. F5 Networks' products are designed to provide a new level of fault tolerance by shielding users from system failure; optimizing response times to user requests and data flow; and cost-effectively managing an organization's Internet infrastructure. The company is headquartered in Seattle, Washington, and has offices in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Columbus, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Toronto, Washington, D.C., Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, The Netherlands, Singapore, Sweden and the United Kingdom. F5 Networks is located on the web at www.f5.com.
F5 Networks (Nasdaq:FFIV - news) Internet Traffic Management products support a wide range of operating systems and hardware platforms including those from: DELL Computer (Nasdaq:DELL - news), Sun Microsystems (Nasdaq:SUNW - news), Hewlett Packard (NYSE:HWP - news), Compaq (NYSE:CPQ - news), Microsoft (Nasdaq:MSFT - news), Apple (Nasdaq:AAPL - news), IBM (NYSE:IBM - news) and Intel (Nasdaq:INTC - news). F5 products work with leading IP-based applications, including legacy host, mainframe, Java, CORBA-based, and client/server applications from vendors such as SAP (NYSE:SAP - news), BAAN (Nasdaq:BAANF - news), Novell (Nasdaq:NOVL - news), Oracle (Nasdaq:ORCL - news), and PeopleSoft (Nasdaq:PSFT - news).
This press release may contain forward looking statements relating to future events or future financial performance that involve risks and uncertainties. Such statements can be identified by terminology such as ``may,'' ``will,'' ``should,'' ``expects,'' ``plans,'' ``anticipates,'' ``believes,'' ``estimates,'' ``predicts'', ``potential'' or ``continue'' or the negative of such terms or comparable terms. These statements are only predictions and actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these statements based upon a number of factors including those identified in the Company's filings with the SEC.
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Contact:
F5 Networks, Inc.
Alane Moran, 206/505-0850
a.moran@f5.com
or
Connect Public Relations
Holly Hagerman, 801/373-7888
hollyh@connectpr.com |
