Finisar Announces Spinoff

SUNNYVALE, Calif. -- Finisar Corporation(NASDAQ: FNSR), a global technology leader in fiber opticcommunication and test and measurement solutions for high-speednetworks, today announced that it had completed a transaction wherebyit spun-off certain assets of its Network Tools business associatedwith its NetWisdom(R) business to an investment group of storage andsoftware sector veterans, led by Mark Urdahl, a former IBM executivewho co-founded the Fibre Channel Systems Initiative, Jim Davidson, afounding partner of Silver Lake Partners, and Steve Mankoff, a formersenior executive at Siebel Systems. Finisar will retain a minoritystake in the spin-off.

The NetWisdom product line, anindustry-leading software and hardware solution, is used formonitoring and analysis of SAN environments within enterprise datacenters. NetWisdom provides real time monitoring and proactiveanalysis of complex SAN issues. The award-winning solution has beenadopted by leading Global 500 enterprise data centers to ensureuninterrupted access to business critical information.

"Our commitment to customers is always a top priority, and we believea dedicated, stand-alone entity will better serve our customers. Weexpect a smooth transition for existing NetWisdom customers as aresult of this transaction," said Jerry Rawls, Chairman and CEO ofFinisar. "We have made excellent progress in this part of ourbusiness, but we have confidence that this team of private equityinvestors will provide the growth capital and singular focus desiredfor this business grow rapidly and satisfy customer demand in theenterprise data center market."

Finisar Corp.