Emulex Releases Open Compute Project and Quad-Port 10Gb Ethernet and Converged Network Adapters

SAN JOSE, Calif. and COSTA MESA, Calif., March 10, 2015  /PRNewswire/ -- OCP U.S. Summit 2015 -- Emulex Corporation (NYSE: ELX), a leader in network connectivity, monitoring and management, today introduced new quad-port 10Gb Ethernet (10GbE) PCI Express (PCIe) and dual-port 10GbE Open Compute Project (OCP) form factor Ethernet and Converged Network Adapters (CNAs), further increasing the breadth of its PCIe 3.0 portfolio. The Company's new OneConnect® OCe14104 and OCm14000-OCP adapters bring industry-leading protocol offloads, small-packet performance, and server power savings that Emulex adapters are known for. When combined with the recent release of new Emulex OCe14000 10GBASE-T PCIe Ethernet and Converged Network Adapters, the Emulex OneConnect I/O connectivity portfolio provides a full range of form factors and network bandwidth for customers looking to optimize the deployment of new Web-scale applications, virtualized environments and software-defined infrastructures. Additionally, Emulex Ethernet Network Adapters were shown to have a latency advantage of up to 5:1 over Intel's latest Ethernet adapters (X710 10GbE and XL710 40GbE adapters) in a recent Demartek Evaluation Report¹.

Tweet This: .@Emulex Announces New #OCP, Quad-Port #10GbE, and Single-Port #40GbE Adapters at OCP Summit @OpenComputePrj: http://ow.ly/K7kOj

Hyperscale computing is one of the fastest-growing segments in IT today, and is characterized by data center architectures focused on improving total cost of ownership, energy efficiency, and reducing complexity in the scalable computing space. The OCP mezzanine adapter specification enables various network connectivity configurations and was developed as an open standard by a community of engineers as part of the OCP Foundation. Emulex OCm14000-OCP adapters provided advanced capabilities for hyperscale customers such as Network Virtualization and Virtual Extensible LAN (VXLAN), Network Virtualization using Generic Routing Encapsulation (NVGRE), Single-Root I/O Virtualization (SR-IOV), and protocol support for RDMA over Converged Ethernet (RoCE) or block storage (iSCSI and Fibre Channel over Ethernet) on Emulex OneConnect CNAs. 

"One of our overriding goals as a company is to enable high performance networking for our customers, regardless of the server form factor that they have chosen," said Shaun Walsh, senior vice president of marketing, Emulex. "Emulex's unified architecture, when combined with enterprise capabilities such as overlay networking and high performance protocol offloads, ensures that organizations can realize predictable performance across a variety of demanding applications and workloads. These new adapters expand our addressable market, with increased bandwidth and port density, particularly for hyperscale customers."

With this announcement, Emulex has also made available a major, new 10.4 software release to the market, providing the following key capabilities:

• Telco Network Functions Virtualization (NFV): Linux Poll Mode Driver (PMD) for Data Plane Development Kit (DPDK) support, providing telecom equipment manufacturers and telecom operators with an optimized solution to reduce cost and scale operations by transitioning to open server platforms
• RSS with VMware NetQueue: Support for receive side scaling (RSS), a network driver technology that enables the efficient distribution of incoming TCP traffic across multiple cores in multi-core processor systems, particularly in software-defined networking (SDN) environments, makes it possible to support higher network traffic loads than would be possible on a single core.  This new capability joins current RSS and vRSS support for Microsoft Windows Server VMQ and Dynamic VMQ environments.
• SDN Offload support for RHEL 7.x and SLES 12: Hardware offload support of VXLAN for the latest releases of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and Novel SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES), preserving precious server resources for application workloads.
• Expanded RoCE support: The 10.4 release includes tech previews of iSCSI Extensions for RDMA (iSER) and Linux Network File System (NFS) over RoCE on the latest versions of RHEL. In addition, Quantized Congestion Notification (QCN) support, to manage network congestion while running RoCE, has been added.

1. Demartek Emulex OCe14102 10GbE and OCe14401 40GbE Adapter Comparison with Intel X710 10GbE and XL710 40GbE Adapters Evaluation Report, February 2015

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About Emulex

Emulex provides connectivity, monitoring and management solutions for high-performance networks, delivering provisioning, end-to-end application visibility, optimization and acceleration for the next generation of software-defined, telco and Web-scale data centers. The Company's I/O connectivity portfolio, which has been designed into server and storage solutions from leading OEMs and ODMs worldwide, enables organizations to manage bandwidth, latency, security and virtualization. The Emulex network visibility portfolio enables global organizations to monitor and improve application and network performance management. Emulex is headquartered in Costa Mesa, Calif. For more information about Emulex (NYSE:ELX) please visit http://www.Emulex.com.

Cautions Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This announcement contains forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements may be typically identified by such words as "may," "will," "could," "should," "expect," "anticipate," "plan," "likely," "believe," "estimate," "project," "intend," and other similar expressions among others. These forward-looking statements are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially from the expectations expressed in the forward-looking statements. Although Avago Technologies Limited ("Avago") and Emulex Corporation ("Emulex") believe that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking statements are reasonable, any or all of such forward-looking statements may prove to be incorrect. Consequently, no forward-looking statements may be guaranteed and there can be no assurance that the actual results or developments anticipated by such forward looking statements will be realized or, even if substantially realized, that they will have the expected consequences to, or effects on, Avago, Emulex or their respective businesses or operations. The foregoing review of important factors that could cause actual events to differ from expectations should not be construed as exhaustive and should be read in conjunction with statements that are included herein and elsewhere, including the risk factors included in Emulex's and Avago's most recent Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q and Annual Report on Form 10-K, respectively, and Emulex's and Avago's more recent reports filed with the SEC. Emulex and Avago can give no assurance that the conditions to the transaction will be satisfied. Neither Emulex nor Avago undertakes any intent or obligation to publicly update or revise any of these forward looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law. Emulex is responsible for information in this press release concerning Emulex and Avago is responsible for information in this press release concerning Avago.

"Safe Harbor" Statement

"Safe Harbor'' Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995: With the exception of historical information, the statements set forth above contain forward-looking statements that involve risk and uncertainties. We expressly disclaim any obligation or undertaking to release publicly any updates or changes to these forward-looking statements that may be made to reflect any future events or circumstances. We wish to caution readers that actual future results could differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements as a result of a variety of factors, including those discussed in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our recent filings on Forms 10-K and 10-Q, under the caption "Risk Factors." Those factors and the factors listed below could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements:

• faster than anticipated declines in the demand for storage networking and fiber channel and slower than expected growth of the converged networking market or the failure of our Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) customers to successfully incorporate our products into their systems;
• the highly competitive nature of the markets for our products as well as pricing pressures that may result from such competitive conditions  and the emergence of new or stronger competitors as a result of consolidation movements in the market;
• our dependence on a limited number of customers and the effects of the loss of, decrease in or delays of orders by any such customers or the failure of our OEM customers to successfully incorporate our products into their systems;
• our reliance on a limited number of third-party suppliers and subcontractors for components and assembly, many of which are located outside of the United States;
• the effect on our margins of rapid migration of technology and product substitution by customers, including transitions from application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) solutions to boards for selected applications and higher-end to lower-end products, mezzanine card products or modular Local Area Network (LAN) on Motherboard (LOMs);
• the non-linearity and variability in the level of our revenue resulting from the variable and seasonal procurement patterns of our customers;
• the possibility that our goodwill could become impaired in the near term which would result in a non-cash charge and could adversely affect our reported GAAP operating results;
• any inadequacy of our intellectual property protection or our ability to obtain necessary licenses or other intellectual property rights on commercially reasonable terms;
• our ability to attract and retain key technical personnel;
• our ability to respond quickly to technological developments and to benefit from our research and development activities as well as government grants related thereto and delays in product development;
• intellectual property and other litigation against us, with or without merit, that could result in substantial attorneys' fees and costs, cause product shipment delays, loss of patent rights, monetary damages, costs associated with product or component redesigns and require us to indemnify customers or enter into royalty or licensing agreements, which may or may not be available;
• our dependence on sales and product production outside of the United States so that our results could be affected by adverse economic, social, political and infrastructure conditions in those countries;
• weakness in domestic and worldwide macro-economic conditions, currency exchange rate fluctuations or  potential disruptions in world credit and equity markets; terrorist activities, natural disasters, or general economic or political instability and any resulting disruption in our supply chain or customer purchasing patterns; and
• changes in tax rates or legislation, accounting standards and other regulatory changes.

On February 25, 2015, Emulex agreed to be acquired by Avago Technologies Limited (Nasdaq: AVGO), subject to the satisfaction of certain conditions.  Factors related to the acquisition which could cause actual results to differ from those projected or contemplated in any such forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, the following factors: (1) the risk that the conditions to the closing of the transaction are not satisfied, including the risk that Avago may not receive a sufficient number of shares tendered from Emulex stockholders to complete the tender offer; (2) litigation relating to the transaction; (3) uncertainties as to the timing of the consummation of the transaction and the ability of each of Emulex and Avago to consummate the transaction; (4) risks that the proposed transaction disrupts the current plans and operations of Emulex or Avago; (5) the ability of Emulex to retain and hire key personnel; (6) competitive responses to the proposed transaction; (7) unexpected costs, charges or expenses resulting from the transaction; (8) potential adverse reactions or changes to business relationships resulting from the announcement or completion of the transaction; (9) Avago's ability to achieve the growth prospects and synergies expected from the transaction, as well as delays, challenges and expenses associated with integrating Emulex with Avago's existing businesses; and (10) legislative, regulatory and economic developments.

All trademarks, trade names, service marks, and logos referenced herein belong to their respective companies.

Additional Information about the Transaction and Where to Find It

The tender offer described herein has not yet commenced. This press release is for informational purposes only and shall not constitute an offer to purchase or the solicitation of an offer to sell any shares of the common stock of Emulex or any other securities. Any offer will only be made pursuant to a tender offer statement on Schedule TO, which will contain an offer to purchase, form of letter of transmittal and other documents relating to the tender offer (collectively, the "Tender Offer Materials"), each to be filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC") by Avago, Avago Technologies Wireless (U.S.A.) Manufacturing Inc. and Emerald Merger Sub, Inc. In addition, Emulex will file with the SEC a solicitation/recommendation statement on Schedule 14D-9 with respect to the tender offer. Avago and Emulex expect to mail the Tender Offer Materials, as well as the Schedule 14D-9, to Emulex stockholders. Investors and security holders are urged to carefully read these documents, as well as any other documents relating to the tender offer or related transactions that are filed with the SEC, when they become available, as they may be amended from time to time, because these documents will contain important information relating to the tender offer and related transactions. Investors and security holders may obtain a free copy of these documents after they have been filed with the SEC, and other annual, quarterly and special reports and other information filed with the SEC by Avago or Emulex, at the SEC's website at www.sec.gov. In addition, such materials will be available for free from Avago or Emulex by directing any requests to investor relations at Avago or Emulex at the applicable phone number or email address below.

A description of certain interests of the directors and executive officers of Emulex is set forth in Emulex's Form 10-K/A, Amendment No. 1, in Part III thereof, which was filed with the SEC on October 27, 2014. A description of certain interests of the directors and executive officers of Avago is set forth in Avago's proxy statement for its 2015 annual meeting, which was filed with the SEC on February 20, 2015. To the extent holdings of either company's securities by their respective directors and certain officers have subsequently changed, such changes have been reflected on Forms 4 filed with the SEC.

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