Acquisition Expands Broadcom's Offerings in the Rapidly Growing Storage Networking Market
IRVINE and SANTA CLARA, Calif. – March 3, 2003 – Broadcom Corporation (Nasdaq: BRCM), the leading provider of integrated circuits enabling broadband communications, today announced that it has acquired a substantial portion of the assets of Gadzoox Networks, Inc., a leading provider of storage networking technology. Storage networks connect servers, switches and storage systems together to lower the total cost of ownership in business data centers.
The majority of storage networking options available today are based on non-interoperable implementations, creating an artificial cost barrier to widespread adoption, especially in the small- to medium-sized business segments of the market. The most widely deployed transport protocol for storage networking at present is Fibre Channel. Gadzoox Networks was the first company to develop open standards-based 1-, 2- and 10-Gigabit Fibre Channel technology that is also interoperable with legacy networks.
"Availability of proven Fibre Channel technology is a significant barrier to entry in the storage networking industry," said Alan E. "Lanny" Ross, President and CEO of Broadcom. "The acquisition of Gadzoox® technology and the company's experienced engineering team will allow Broadcom to change the economic dynamics of storage networking, similar to our success in achieving industry leading integration and cost points for Ethernet networking."
"As storage requirements continue to grow in the data center, OEMs require solutions that simplify connectivity, save space, and require less power," said Steve Dalton, CEO of Gadzoox Networks. "Combining Broadcom's mixed-signal design expertise with the field-proven silicon and firmware of Gadzoox will create highly integrated silicon solutions that will enable server, switch and storage system OEMs to develop plug and play storage networks with vast improvements in power and footprint requirements."
With the addition of the Gadzoox technology to its product portfolio, Broadcom now has a complete suite of networking products for the storage industry including multi-port Gigabit Fibre Channel SerDes (serializers/deserializers), Gigabit Ethernet and iSCSI controllers, ServerWorks® Serial ATA (SATA) controllers and I/O bridges, multi-protocol Gigabit switch fabrics, and SiByte™ broadband network processors.
Broadcom acquired the Gadzoox Networks assets for the cash purchase price of approximately $5.8 million, subject to a post-closing adjustment.
About Gadzoox Networks
Since 1996, Gadzoox Networks has driven the Storage Area Network (SAN) entry-level market with innovative Fibre Channel switching technology. The company is a voting member of the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA). Gadzoox Networks is headquartered in Santa Clara, Calif.
About Broadcom
Broadcom Corporation is the leading provider of highly integrated silicon solutions that enable broadband communications and networking of voice, video and data services. Using proprietary technologies and advanced design methodologies, Broadcom designs, develops and supplies complete system-on-a-chip solutions and related hardware and software applications for every major broadband communications market. Our diverse product portfolio includes solutions for digital cable and satellite set-top boxes; cable and DSL modems and residential gateways; high-speed transmission and switching for local, metropolitan and wide area networking; home and wireless networking; cellular and terrestrial wireless communications; Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) gateway and telephony systems; broadband network processors; and SystemI/O™ server solutions. These technologies and products support our core mission: Connecting everything®.
Broadcom is headquartered in Irvine, Calif., and may be contacted at 1-949-450-8700 or at www.broadcom.com.
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All statements included or incorporated by reference in this release, other than statements or characterizations of historical fact, are forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are based on our current expectations, estimates and projections about our industry, management's beliefs, and certain assumptions made by us. Forward-looking statements can often be identified by words such as "anticipates," "expects," "intends," "plans," "predicts," "believes," "seeks," "estimates," "may," "will," "should," "would," "potential," "continue," similar expressions, and variations or negatives of these words. In addition, any statements that refer to expectations, projections or other characterizations of future events or circumstances, including any underlying assumptions, are forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date hereof and are based upon the information available to us at this time. Such information is subject to change, and we will not necessarily inform you of such changes. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions that are difficult to predict. Therefore, our actual results could differ materially and adversely from those expressed in any forward-looking statements as a result of various factors.
Important factors that may cause such a difference for Broadcom in connection with the acquisition of assets of Gadzoox Networks, Inc. include, but are not limited to, the risks inherent in acquisitions of technologies and businesses, including the timing and successful completion of technology and product development through volume production, integration issues, costs and unanticipated expenditures, changing relationships with customers, suppliers and strategic partners, potential contractual, intellectual property or employment issues, accounting treatment and charges, and the risks that the anticipated benefits of the acquisition are not realized, general economic and political conditions and specific conditions in the markets we address, including the continuing significant economic slowdown and volatility in the technology sector and semiconductor industry, trends in the broadband communications markets in various geographic regions, and possible disruption in commercial activities related to terrorist activity or armed conflict in the United States and other locations; our ability to retain and hire key executives, technical personnel and other employees in the numbers, with the capabilities, and at the compensation levels needed to implement our business and product plans; the rate at which our present and future customers and end-users adopt Broadcom's technologies and products in the markets for storage networking; delays in the adoption and acceptance of industry standards in those markets; the timing of customer-industry qualification and certification of our products and the risks of non-qualification or non-certification; the timing, rescheduling or cancellation of significant customer orders and the ability of our customers to manage their inventories; the loss of a key customer; the volume of our product sales and pricing concessions on volume sales; changes in our product or customer mix; competitive pressures and other factors such as the qualification, availability and pricing of competing products and technologies and the resulting effects on sales and pricing of our products; intellectual property disputes and customer indemnification claims and other types of litigation risk; our ability to specify, develop or acquire, complete, introduce, market and transition to volume production new products and technologies in a timely manner; the effects of new and emerging technologies; the availability and pricing of third party semiconductor foundry and assembly capacity and raw materials; fluctuations in the manufacturing yields of our third party semiconductor foundries and other problems or delays in the fabrication, assembly, testing or delivery of our products; the risks of producing products with new suppliers and at new fabrication and assembly facilities; problems or delays that we may face in shifting our products to smaller geometry process technologies and in achieving higher levels of design integration; the quality of our products and any remediation costs; the effectiveness of our expense and product cost control and reduction efforts; the risks and uncertainties associated with our international operations, particularly in light of recent events; the effects of natural disasters, international conflicts and other events beyond our control; the level of orders received that can be shipped in a fiscal quarter; and other factors.
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Broadcom®, the pulse logo, Connecting everything®, ServerWorks®, SiByte™ and SystemI/O™ are trademarks of Broadcom Corporation and/or its affiliates in the United States and certain other countries. Gadzoox® is a trademark of Gadzoox Networks, Inc. All other trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners.
