Skip Navigation Links

ALACRITECH NAMES BELL MICROPRODUCTS CHANNEL PARTNER OF THE YEAR

San Jose, Calif. — July 20, 2004 — Alacritech® Inc., the innovator of data acceleration solutions that enable the highest performance and efficiency in networked systems, today announced it has named Bell Microproducts (Nasdaq: BELM) the Alacritech Channel Partner of the Year for Alacritech’s recently ended 2004 fiscal year. Bell Microproducts is one of the world’s largest value-added providers of storage products and solutions and has carried Alacritech Accelerators since the company’s first commercial shipments in early 2000. The award recognized Bell Microproducts’ increase in Alacritech Accelerator sales of 87% over 2003, in addition to its exceptional product, marketing and sales support.

“Bell Microproducts’ outstanding customer relationships and technical expertise in storage networking has enabled it to consistently grow sales of Alacritech Accelerators quarter over quarter,” said Larry Boucher, president and CEO, Alacritech Inc. “Alacritech recognizes the value of strong channel partner relationships, and as we measured the revenues and growth, we were pleased to name Bell Microproducts the winner of this award.”

“Storage and server consolidation and scalable networking are critical IT issues for corporations today, and being a long-time provider of Alacritech’s leading TCP/IP offload technology has helped us to offer best-in-class solutions to our customers,” said Don Bell, CEO and President, Bell Microproducts. “We’re honored to receive this award, and are looking forward to continuing to offer Alacritech technology and our value-added services to meet customer demand.”

Alacritech CEO Larry Boucher presented the Alacritech Channel Partner of the Year award to Bell Microproducts’ founder and president, Don Bell. Bell Microproducts’ corporate marketing manager Tom Shaw received the Alacritech Corporate Marketing Manager of the Year award for his outstanding product, marketing and sales support which continues to be instrumental to Bell Microproducts’ success with the Alacritech line. Bell Microproducts distributes and supports Alacritech’s complete line of Gigabit and Fast Ethernet Accelerators and iSCSI Accelerators.

Bell Microproducts has enhanced the Alacritech product line with its six value-added services centers offering specific help in design/engineering, project management, manufacturing/integration, quality and end-of-life management and other areas of specific support.

About Alacritech SLIC Technology®
Alacritech’s SLIC Technology is a Data Path Offload (DPO) architecture that is the first fully compatible and scalable architecture to offload network protocol processing including TCP/IP, RDMA and iSCSI from host software to silicon. By efficiently eliminating system and network bottlenecks and maximizing data movement through Ethernet-based networks, SLIC Technology significantly increases system, application and network performance and enables scalable networking to 10 Gigabit and beyond. All Alacritech Accelerator products are based on SLIC Technology and include Gigabit Ethernet and Fast Ethernet TNIC products, iSCSI controller products and IPP ASICs. All Alacritech products offer industry-standard failover and link aggregation.

About Bell Microproducts
Bell Microproducts is an international, value-added provider of a wide range of high-technology products, solutions, and services to the industrial and commercial markets. The company’s offering includes semiconductors, computer platforms, peripherals, and storage products of various types including desktop, high-end computer and storage subsystems, fibre channel connectivity products, RAID, NAS and SAN storage systems, back-up products, storage management software, and extensive support, integration and installation services. Bell Microproducts is an industry-recognized specialist in storage products and is one of the world's largest storage-centric value-added distributors.

The company’s products are available at any level of integration, from components to subsystem assemblies and fully-integrated, tested and certified system solutions. The company adds value with a broad range of services including testing, software loading, kitting, mass storage system integration, and computer system integration. Trained and certified technical personnel complete each of these processes at Bell Microproducts’ ISO 9001:2000 facilities. Bell Microproducts markets and distributes more than 125 brand name product lines, as well as its own Rorke Data storage brands, to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), contract electronic manufacturing services (EMS) customers, value-added resellers (VARs) and system integrators in the Americas and Europe. More information can be found in the company's SEC filings, or by visiting the Bell Microproducts Web site at www.bellmicro.com.

About Alacritech Inc.
Alacritech Inc. is the world’s leading supplier of TCP Offload Engine (TOE) solutions that enable the highest performance and efficiency in networked systems. Alacritech’s complete line of Accelerators is based on the company’s patented SLIC Technology to optimize data delivery in servers, network-attached storage and iSCSI storage devices. SLIC Technology, the basis of industry-accepted TOE solutions, ships in storage and server products worldwide. Alacritech is a privately held company based in San Jose, California. For more information about Alacritech and its products, please visit the company’s Web site at www.alacritech.com.

# # #

Alacritech, the Alacritech logo, SLIC Technology, SLIC Technology logo and Accelerating Data Delivery are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Alacritech, Inc. in the United States. Other marks belong to their respective owners.

Safe Harbor Statement

This release may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements, which reflect the Company's current views of future events and financial performance, involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties which could cause actual results or facts to differ materially from such statements for a variety of reasons including, but not limited to: the ability to successfully integrate the operations of recent acquisitions, industry conditions, changes in product supply, pricing, and customer demand, competition, other vagaries in the computer and electronic components markets, changes in relationships with key suppliers, foreign currency fluctuations and the other risks described from time to time in the Company's reports to the Securities and Exchange Commission (including the company's Annual Report on Form 10-K). Investors should take such risks into account when making investment decisions. Shareholders and other readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date on which they are made. The company undertakes no obligation to update publicly or revise any forward-looking statements.


Press Contacts:

Victoria McCracken
Alacritech, Inc.
Tel: 408.487.5740
vmccracken@alacritech.com
  Valdis Hellevik
Axis Public Relations
Tel: 650.401.7700
valdis@axispr.com
  Rob Watson
Bell Microproducts
Tel: 408.501.3315
rob@bellmicro.com