Features - Financial Plays Of The Week:

BlueArc OBTAINS NATIONAL MASTER STORAGE STANDING OFFER

M4 Technologies Corporation, a leader in the sales and support of mission-critical computing, and BlueArc Corporation, a leader in high performance, highly scalable network attached storage (NAS), announced recently that M4 Technologies and the BlueArc SiliconServer Architecture have successfully obtained a $20 million dollar National Master Storage Standing Offer by the Government of Canada. As such, M4 and BlueArc are now listed as approved suppliers to Canadian federal government agencies, departments and crown corporations.

BlueArc's SiliconServer Family of products provides a wire-speed network attached fixed storage solution to meet the challenges of sharing, managing, and protecting data within any enterprise. With a wide range of industry-standard networking features, the SiliconServer easily integrates into any open storage network while delivering maximum performance and scalability. The SiliconServer family brings several industry-leading features to the NAS market with the introduction of 2 Gbps Fibre Channel; Accelerated Data Copy (ADC) for inter- and intra-server high-speed data replication; Virtual Volume Management Services for system administration; and the highest storage density per square foot of any Fibre Channel NAS system. This architecture is particularly well suited for the highly intensive data storage requirements of the Canadian Government.

About M4 Technologies

M4 Technologies' home office is in Ottawa, Canada's Capital. The company is focused on helping clients with information technology solutions in Ottawa, Toronto and Montreal. M4 provides products and manpower to complement clients' professional services needs and support that keeps their businesses running smoothly. For more information, visit the M4 Web site at www.m4.ca.

About BlueArc

BlueArc Corporation and its SiliconServer Architecture deliver the world's only file server designed to scale beyond today's 1 Gbps networks toward tomorrow's 10 Gbps networks. BlueArc's SiliconServer Architecture moves software into programmable hardware and removes the bottlenecks that limit performance in other NAS systems on the market today. BlueArc SiliconServers deliver groundbreaking speed and scalability, simplifying the way our customers design and build their storage infrastructures. The company's headquarters are in San Jose, California with UK operations based in Bracknell, England. More information on BlueArc is available on the Internet at www.bluearc.com.