PIGEON POINT SYSTEMS ANNOUNCES IPM SENTRY SHELF MANAGEMENT PRODUCTS FOR AdvancedTCA -- Strategy Already Endorsed by Several Leading Companies

Point Systems announces at the Bus&Board/2003 Conference, its IPM Sentry shelf management products for AdvancedTCA, with compatible support for CompactPCI® and the upcoming CompactTCA.

LONG BEACH, CA, JANUARY 20, 2003. Pigeon Point Systems announced today, at the Bus&Board/2003 Conference, its IPM Sentry shelf management products for AdvancedTCA, with compatible support for CompactPCI® and the upcoming CompactTCA. IPM Sentry is a family of hardware and software products that enable cost-effective, interoperable management of open modular platforms based on the Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI), the chosen foundation for platform management in PCI Industrial Computer Manufacturers Group (PICMG®-developer of AdvancedTCA) specifications. Using IPM Sentry components, developers of AdvancedTCA shelf and board products can quickly and cost-effectively incorporate compliant, competitive management subsystems. Several leading companies have already endorsed the IPM Sentry strategy (with specific statements attached to this announcement), including APW Electronic Solutions, Carlo Gavazzi Mupac Electronic Packaging, Elma Electronic, Motorola Computer Group, NMS Communications and Performance Technologies.

The just-adopted PICMG 3.0 specification defines a rich and mandatory management framework with substantial extensions to the IPMI foundation facilities that are already widely used across the PC and server industry as well as in the mature CompactPCI System Management specification," said Mark Overgaard, President of Pigeon Point Systems. With our IPM Sentry products, Pigeon Point Systems is the first supplier of off-the-shelf hardware and software management building blocks that allow developers of AdvancedTCA shelf and board products to focus on their unique added value, rather than building AdvancedTCA management compliance from the ground up. We aim to be the best source for these components and we are building a critical mass of vendors and suppliers who support our approach."

The initial IPM Sentry products include:
•   IPM Sentry Shelf Manager and IPM Sentry ShMM-300: The Shelf Manager software executes on the ShMM-300 hardware, a small (67.60mm x 50.80mm) Shelf Management Mezzanine (ShMM). These products can be integrated with a shelf-specific management board to quickly enable a highly manageable and specification-compliant shelf, including sophisticated support for dual redundant Shelf Managers, if desired. For prototyping and exploratory work in a lab environment, the IPM Sentry BTC-100 product provides a bench top carrier for ShMM modules that enables immediate and convenient exercising of all key shelf management functionality.

•   IPM Sentry Board Manager and IPM Sentry BMR-100: The Board Manager software executes on BMR-100-based hardware to implement the management portion of an AdvancedTCA Field Replaceable Unit (FRU). The BMR-100 Board Management Reference design provides all the information necessary to integrate specification-compliant management into AdvancedTCA FRU hardware, ranging from full 8U-sized Front Boards to auxiliary FRUs such as fan trays.
Pigeon Point Systems is an active leader and recognized expert in the management aspects of AdvancedTCA. The IPM Sentry Shelf Manager and ShMM-300 products can greatly accelerate the development of fully manageable, specification-compliant AdvancedTCA shelf products," observed Joe Pavlat, of Cypress Point Research and President of PICMG. Shelf developers can create simple carrier boards for the intelligent ShMM module and concentrate on the unique aspects of their shelf architectures. Two of these carriers, each mated with an IPM Sentry Shelf Manager and ShMM-300, can provide fully redundant management access to a shelf."

As developers of sophisticated AdvancedTCA products, were convinced the IPM Sentry Board Manager and BMR-100 reference design can save considerable time and money," noted Brough Turner, Chief Technology Officer of NMS Communications (www.nmscommunications.com). By using the reference design and Board Manager, we can dedicate our internal development resources to ensuring technology leadership in the main board functionality." NMS Communications designs, delivers, and supports technology-leading systems and system building blocks for innovative voice, video, and data services on wireless and wireline networks.
The IPM Sentry Shelf Manager is designed from the beginning to support CompactPCI and CompactTCA chassis/shelves as well as AdvancedTCA shelves. PPS is one of the six sponsor companies for the just-announced CompactTCA initiative, in which key management features already defined in CompactPCI specifications become mandatory. The IPM Sentry Shelf Manager will leverage those features to enable unified management of both AdvancedTCA and CompactTCA shelves and chassis, including compatible command line, Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) and web-oriented interfaces.

The IPM Sentry Shelf Manager and Board Manager software, as well as the ShMM-300 mezzanine module, BTC-100 bench top carrier and BMR-100 reference design, will ship on a production basis in Q1, 2003. Preliminary versions of these products are already in use within PPS key IPM Sentry partner companies. For more detail on the IPM Sentry products (including a more technical overview), visit www.pigeonpoint.com.

About Pigeon Point Systems
Pigeon Point Systems (PPS) provides products and services that enable cost-effective management of standards-based platforms-including AdvancedTCA, CompactTCA and CompactPCI-and is a leader in the definition of those platforms. With its IPM Sentry shelf management products, PPS offers the first shelf management building blocks for AdvancedTCA shelf and board products, with similar support for CompactPCI and CompactTCA to come. Other PPS products (especially the category-leading Pigeon Point Hot Swap Kit) have been licensed to leading CompactPCI platform and board vendors as well as to Microsoft for inclusion in Windows XP Embedded. PPS chairs the Software Interoperability subcommittee, is a leader in the PICMG 3.x subcommittees that developed AdvancedTCA and is active in many other technical subcommittees of PICMG. For more information about PPS, visit their web site at www.pigeonpoint.com or call their headquarters at 831-438-1565.

Note to Editors
Pigeon Point Systems, Hot Swap Kit and IPM Sentry are trademarks of Pigeon Point Systems. PICMG, CompactPCI, AdvancedTCA and CompactTCA are trademarks of the PCI Industrial Computer Manufacturers Group (the first two registered trademarks). Other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Supplementary Quotes
There has been a growing need for system management support across a variety of open modular architectures," said Frank Cooper, VP Sales and Marketing of APW Electronic Solutions. Although a base specification (IPMI) and some open modular architecture mappings have been available, they havent gone far enough in addressing the unique needs of this space, resulting in proprietary and incompatible solutions. The IPM Sentry products take advantage of the IPMI extensions in AdvancedTCA and map those facilities into other open modular architectures, such as CompactPCI. We are confident this is a winning strategy and are delighted to be part of it."

Pigeon Point Systems IPM Sentry shelf management products provide CG Mupac with the necessary hardware and software foundation for the shelf management aspects of our AdvancedTCA and CompactPCI initiatives; better yet, they are cost effective and allow us to accelerate our market entry," said Steve Corbesero, Vice President of Carlo Gavazzi Mupac Computer Systems.

As a developer of Intelligent Platform Solutions, Elma Electronic sees the IPM Sentry products as an invaluable shelf management offering," said Ram Rajan, VP of Engineering for Elma Electronic, Inc. IPM Sentry building blocks will be integrated as a core feature in our AdvancedTCA and CompactPCI shelf solutions, enabling Elma to offer innovative products that fully meet present and future requirements of System Management and High Availability."

Motorolas use of the IPM Sentry Shelf Manager, Board Manager and ShMM-300 products for evaluation purposes in our Proof of Concept AdvancedTCA products has accelerated our product development, enhancing our participation in the PICMG-sponsored interoperability workshops," said Jeff Rhodes, business manager of Motorola Computer Group. We are delighted with the high energy support Pigeon Point Systems is providing in this context and look forward to further Motorola/PPS collaboration in 2003."

NMS Communications is collaborating closely with Pigeon Point Systems on the IPM Sentry Board Manager and BMR-100 reference designs, which we are including in the development of our new series of AdvancedTCA products," said George Kontopidis, Senior Vice President of Engineering - Advanced Platform Group, NMS Communications. This excellent OEM relationship that we share with Pigeon Point Systems is similar to what we seek with our own strategic partners."

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