Brocade FAQ

How many shares were offered in the IPO?
3,250,000 shares were offered in the IPO with an additional 487,500 shares offered to the underwriters to cover over-allotments.

Who were the lead underwriters for the Brocade Initial Public Offering (IPO)?
The top 3 underwriters, based on number of shares, for Brocade's IPO were, in order, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, BT Alex.Brown, & Dain Rauscher Wessels. For a complete list of underwriters, refer to our S-1 filing with the SEC, dated May 24, 1999.

Where does Brocade stock trade?
Brocade stock is traded in the National Market System of the NASDAQ stock market.

What is the ticker symbol for Brocade's stock and how is it found in the financial pages of newspapers?
The ticker symbol for Brocade's stock is BRCD and is listed in the financial pages as "BrcdeComm" or "Brocade".

How does one trade Brocade stock?
Brocade stock can be purchased or sold through a registered stockbroker or bank and generally through any financial institution that provides brokerage services.

What year was Brocade incorporated and in what state?
Brocade was incorporated on May 14, 1999 in Delaware.

Who is the transfer agent for Brocade's stock?
Wells Fargo Shareowner Services 1-800-468-9716 or Fax 651.450.4033

How do I change my address on my Brocade stock certificate? Or change title on the stock?
All questions regarding your ownership of Brocade stock should be addressed to our transfer agent, Norwest Shareowner Services at 1-800-468-9716.

Does Brocade have a direct purchase plan?
No, Brocade currently does not have a direct purchase plan.

Does Brocade issue dividends? And, does Brocade have a DRIP plan?
No, Brocade currently does not issue dividends and does not have a DRIP plan.

When has Brocade's stock split?
Please see the section entitled Stock Split History under the BROCADE Investor Relations home page for a complete history of Brocade stock splits.

When do the fiscal quarters end?
Fiscal Quarter One: Last Saturday of January
Fiscal Quarter Two: Last Saturday of April
Fiscal Quarter Three: Last Saturday of July
Fiscal Quarter Four: Last Saturday of October

Who are Brocade's top competitors?
Ancor, Gadzoox, McData, and Vixel represent companies that compete with Brocade. Some companies compete across all Brocade's product lines, while others do not offer as wide a breadth of networking solutions.

Brocade currently offers the industry's broadest range of products for networking servers and storage. In addition to our extensive OEM partnerships, we have announced some significant strategic partnerships, including those with ONI Systems, StorageNetworks, and Veritas Software. These partnerships help further Brocade's position in delivering leading SAN solutions.

What products does Brocade sell?
BROCADE SilkWorm Fibre Channel fabric switches are the industry-standard networking foundation for storage area networks (SANs). Using Brocade fabric switches, customers can connect servers with storage devices through a SAN, creating a reliable, highly available, and scalable environment for storage applications. Brocade solutions enable companies to keep pace with exponentially increasing storage requirements, while reducing the total cost of ownership of storage environments and improving network and application efficiency and performance.

The Brocade family of SilkWorm Fibre Channel fabric switches and software provides a scaleable, high-speed interconnect between server systems and attached storage devices (such as tape and disk storage) thereby optimizing the use of these devices and the performance of data center applications. Brocade solutions play an essential role in enabling storage consolidation, disaster recovery, and continuous availability of data in a storage environment.
Please refer to the products section of our web site for a specific listing of Brocade solutions.

What are Brocade's new products?
Brocade is continually announcing new products. Please refer to our web site at www.brocade.com for a specific listing of Brocade solutions.

What is a SAN? A WAN? A MAN? A LAN?
SAN stands for Storage Area Network and is a high-speed, reliable data communications network that connects servers and storage devices, allowing companies to access and share storage in a high-performance, manageable, and scalable fashion. SANS Lcomplement existing WAN, MAN, LAN infrastructures.
WAN stands for Wide Area Network and is a data communications network that serves users across a broad geographic area.
MAN stands for Metropolitan-area Network and is a network that spans a metropolitan area. Generally, a MAN spans a larger geographic area than a LAN, but a smaller geographic area than a WAN.
LAN stands for Local Area Network and is a high-speed, data network covering a relatively small geographic area (up to a few thousand meters). LANs connect workstations, peripherals, terminals and other devices in a single building or other geographically limited area.

How long has Greg Reyes been at Brocade? What is his background?
Greg Reyes joined Brocade in 1998 as President and Chief Executive Officer.
He has more than 16 years of management experience in the computing industry, spanning the data communications, networking, hardware, and software markets. Before joining Brocade, Reyes was President and CEO of Wireless Access, Inc., a pioneer in wireless data messaging platforms and integrated circuits. At Wireless Access, he led the company's rapid growth phase from start-up through to acquisition. Prior to Wireless Access, Reyes was a Divisional Vice President for Norand Data Systems, a developer of wireless data networks and hand held terminals. While at Norand, Reyes was a member of the management team and played a strategic role in the company's IPO. Prior to Norand, he was Vice President of Sales and Support at Banyan Systems, which was a pioneer in networking and data communications software. Reyes began his career at Convergent Technologies, an OEM supplier of workstations and Unix servers. Reyes currently serves on the boards of Avanex and Proxim.

Where is Brocade located?
Brocade's principal executive offices are located at 1745 Technology Drive, San Jose, California 95110, USA, and its main telephone number is 408-487-8000. For Investor Relations the telephone number is 1-877-501-BRCD (1-877-501-2723).

Who is Brocade's outside legal counsel?
Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati (Palo Alto, California) is Brocade's legal counsel.

Who are Brocade's independent accountants?
Brocade's independent accountants are Arthur Andersen LLP (San Jose, California).