Las Vegas, NV — April 7, 2003— (Pinnacle Systems’ NAB Booth # SU5003) — Alacritech®, Inc., the innovator of network accelerator solutions that enable fast and efficient servers and storage systems, today announced an OEM agreement with Pinnacle Systems, Inc., a leading provider of cutting-edge digital media, storage and play-back solutions. Pinnacle will integrate the Alacritech Gigabit Accelerator into its Vortex News line of Media Access Servers and the Palladium Store-100 server to provide the industry’s top performance and scalability for content creators working in digital broadcast news environments.

“Pinnacle’s Vortex network-based Workgroup Solutions are specifically designed to enable journalists, producers, and editors working in fast-paced environments to quickly and easily access video, audio and graphics without worrying about bandwidth or storage limitations,” said Peter Balkus, Business Unit Manager, Broadcast News, Pinnacle Systems. “By integrating Alacritech’s high performance TOE Gigabit NIC, we are providing our customers with a 50% performance increase and the scalability they require with our Vortex line and our newly announced Palladium Store-100.”

To speed media access and content delivery, release 2.1 of Pinnacle’s leading Vortex Networked News media server family and its Palladium Store-100 server will utilize Alacritech’s Gigabit Accelerator. Known as an Integrated Storage Network Interface Card (IS-NIC), the Alacritech accelerator is the industry’s first product to simultaneously accelerate both IP storage and standard Ethernet traffic. Alacritech’s accelerator is well-known for providing industry-leading performance in data-intensive environments including iSCSI deployments, backup solutions, file servers, and digital imaging applications. The TCP/IP accelerator, or TCP offload engine (TOE), is based on the company’s patented SLIC Technology‘ to offload network processing from host software to silicon to achieve outstanding performance in servers, workstations and networks.

“Today, broadcast news operations need tools that enable immediate access to content in order to deliver a finished product to air within minutes,” said Kim Peyser, Senior Vice President, Sales and Marketing, Alacritech Inc. “Alacritech’s SLIC Technology provides systems with the most efficient way to move data over TCP. By integrating SLIC Technology, Pinnacle will provide their customers with rapid network access to digital media so they can more quickly meet demanding deadlines.”

About Pinnacle Systems Vortex Networked News
Vortex Networked News is a comprehensive digital newsroom production solution that integrates all aspects of the news workflow including ingest, editing, and playback of video into a single, seamless environment using standard IT infrastructure built on Pinnacle’s Emmy Award winning media server technology. Its open and flexible architecture makes it scalable to suit the needs of local news providers and global broadcasters. MOS compliance and well-established APIs allow Vortex to interface with newsroom systems such as iNews and ENPS, as well as automation controllers including Omnibus and Pebble Beach. Within seconds of ingesting material from a source, everyone involved in production can begin working from virtually any PC on the network. Easy-to-use, purpose-built editors handle even the full range of news editing tasks – from quick cuts for breaking news to sophisticated compositing for promos.

About Alacritech Acceleration Technology
As systems and servers are burdened with increasing amounts of network traffic, they are forced to process data faster and more efficiently. Alacritech’s SLIC Technology, a data-path TCP/IP offload architecture, is designed to enhance Ethernet/IP network performance as well as dramatically reduce network overhead. Alacritech TCP/IP accelerators use the Internet Protocol Processor (IPP), a custom, programmable ASIC developed to offload TCP/IP processing from host software to the IPP ASIC to reduce CPU utilization, increase data throughput and decrease network latency.

Availability
Pinnacle Systems’ Vortex Networked News release 2.1 will include support for the Alacritech Gigabit Accelerator, and will be available in April, 2003. Pinnacle’s newly announced Palladium Store-100 including the Alacritech accelerators will also ship in April, 2003. Alacritech’s complete line of server and storage accelerators are available through OEM and channel partners.

About Pinnacle Systems, Inc.
Pinnacle Systems provides broadcasters and consumers with cutting-edge digital media creation, storage, and play-back solutions for use at Home, in the Studio and on the Air. Pinnacle Systems’ award winning digital media solutions are in use around the world for broadcast, video editing, DVD and CDR authoring and on the Internet. A recognized industry leader, the company has received eight prestigious Emmy Awards for its technical innovations and carries this commitment throughout all of its product lines. Pinnacle Systems may be reached at (650) 526-1600 or at www.pinnaclesys.com.

About Alacritech, Inc.
Alacritech, Inc. was founded by Larry Boucher, creator of the SCSI interface, to deliver upon his vision of eliminating the server bottleneck. Today, Alacritech is the innovator of network accelerator solutions that enable fast and efficient servers and storage systems. Alacritech’s products are based on the company’s patented SLIC (session-layer interface control) Technology to optimize the performance of servers, network-attached storage and iSCSI storage devices. SLIC Technology is the first fully compatible and scalable technology to offload network protocol processing, primarily TCP/IP, from software on the host system to silicon on the adapter. Based in San Jose, California, Alacritech is privately held. Alacritech is a member of the 10 Gigabit Ethernet Alliance, the iSCSI Consortium and the Storage Networking Association (SNIA) as well as a founding member of the SNIA IP Storage Forum. For more information about Alacritech and its products, please visit the company's Web site at www.alacritech.com.

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