Press Releases

BLADE Ships First RoHS Compliant Products From Solectron’s IPC-Certified Facility

SANTA CLARA, Calif., April 13, 2006—BLADE Network Technologies Inc. (BLADE), the leading provider of network infrastructure to the blade server market, announced that it shipped one of the first Restriction on Hazardous Materials (RoHS) compliant products from Solectron Corporation’s (NYSE: SLR) Charlotte, N.C. facility, which has been RoHS certified by the independent global trade association IPC. The RoHS Directive will ban sales of new electrical and electronic equipment containing more than agreed levels of lead, cadmium, mercury, hexavalent chromium, polybrominated biphenyl (PBB) and polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE) flame retardants starting on July 1, 2006 in the European Union. California has passed a similar law that will go into effect January 1, 2007.

BLADE outsources its product manufacturing and supply chain needs for its embedded Ethernet switching products to Solectron, a leading provider of electronics manufacturing and integrated supply chain services and the first tier-one electronics manufacturing services (EMS) firm to receive RoHS certification at one of its sites from IPC. Solectron Charlotte was the beta test site for IPC’s new IPC RoHS Lead Free Process Capability Program. Solectron Charlotte successfully completed the audit program by demonstrating the processes necessary to be capable of producing lead-free assemblies in compliance with the RoHS directive.

BLADE has manufactured its blade server switching products at Solectron’s world-class manufacturing facilities in Charlotte for over three years and is now leveraging Solectron’s RoHS capabilities to migrate its entire portfolio to be RoHS compliant. Three BLADE products have already started shipping and all remaining BLADE products will be RoHS-compliant by April 30th, 2006.

“BLADE Network Technologies is committed to finding effective responses to its customers’ requirements and those of environmental agencies worldwide. RoHS compliance is complex and requires a tremendous amount of effort, and we view our RoHS readiness as a competitive advantage,” said Vikram Mehta, president and CEO of BLADE. “Solectron demonstrated its capabilities and commitment to RoHS compliance early by establishing processes, working with industry organizations, becoming IPC certified and then partnering with us on the product manufacturing side to deliver RoHS compliant products to our customers, without any disruption in supply.” Jim Wallace, general manager of Solectron’s Charlotte, N.C., facility said having BLADE shipping actual RoHS compliant product from the facility demonstrates the real business impact of Solectron’s RoHS readiness across all of its worldwide sites and validation from IPC for Solectron and its customers.

“The repercussions of the European Union’s RoHS legislation are significant, but Solectron has done its due diligence globally to help our customers navigate the E.U.’s requirements,” Wallace said. “BLADE recognized early the business opportunity to ensuring RoHS-ready solutions to its customers, and aggressively addressed preparing its products for pending RoHS regulation. Solectron has offered lead-free manufacturing long before the European Union released its RoHS guidelines, but BLADE is a great example of how Solectron is working with major OEMs to meet the July 1 deadline.”

About Blade Network Technologies

BLADE Network Technologies (BLADE) is an industry leading supplier of Ethernet, IP, and application switches for blade server systems globally. BLADE is the first vendor to focus exclusively on serving the network infrastructure needs of the rapidly growing blade server market. The company’s end-users include Fortune 500 companies across 25 different industry segments. As one of the largest suppliers of blade server switches, BLADE boasts an installed base of more than 53,000 switches (representing approximately 1.2 million Gigabit Ethernet ports) around the world. In 2006, BLADE was established as a fully independent company when it purchased certain assets of Nortel’s Blade Server Switch Business Unit.

For more information, visit BLADE on the Web at www.bladenetwork.net.

About Solectron

Solectron Corporation (www.solectron.com) provides a full range of electronics manufacturing and supply chain management services to the world’s leading networking, telecommunications, computing, consumer, automotive, industrial and medical device firms. The company’s industry-leading Lean Six Sigma methodology (Solectron Production System™) provides OEMs with low cost, flexibility and quality that improves competitive advantage. Solectron’s service offerings include new product introduction, collaborative design, materials management, product manufacturing, product warranty repair and end-of-life support. Based in Milpitas, Calif., Solectron operates in more than 20 countries on five continents and had sales from continuing operations of $10.4 billion in fiscal 2005.