NETGEAR Outlines Growth Strategy for Today's Smart Networking Company

SAN JOSE, Calif., Nov. 5, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- NETGEAR®, Inc. (Nasdaq: NTGR), a global networking company that delivers innovative products to consumers, businesses and Internet service providers, today outlined its growth plan as well as announced three new product families and a range of new content offerings, support services and certifications. NETGEAR holds the #1 position in retail home networking in the U.S. and Western Europe, and its Smart IT business solutions have achieved #1 market share for unmanaged switches, smart switches and business storage, #2 for business firewalls and #3 for wireless routers and gateways in the same geographies. Today, the company also announced that it was positioned by Gartner, Inc. as a "Challenger" in the "Magic Quadrant for Unified Threat Management" report. NETGEAR is one of the few UTM companies that provide a solution across three primary midsize infrastructure challenges: security, data backup/protection, and switching and wireless LAN business products.

Today's networks must support an ever increasing array of content and communications, including email, cloud computing, data backup, ecommerce, multimedia, entertainment, remote surveillance, social media, virtualization, video conferencing and VoIP. NETGEAR helps consumers and businesses connect with networking, storage and security products that are reliable, affordable and simple for an ever-broadening range of applications and uses.

For more than 10 years, NETGEAR has been first to market with networking innovations like beam-forming and smart WiFi antennas, consumer technologies like cloud-based parental controls and Push2TV™, and business firsts such as Smart and Plus switching, stream scanning security appliances, unmanaged gigabit switching and X-RAID® network storage.

"NETGEAR is today's smart networking company," said Patrick Lo, NETGEAR Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. "We're announcing a growth plan to take a leadership position in five new home and business networking areas, including TV connectivity, 100Mbps+ broadband gateways, 3G/4G wireless broadband gateways, network storage and security appliances."

Home – TV 2.0 and Connected Entertainment

NETGEAR makes high performance, dependable and easy to use home networking, storage and digital media products to connect people with the Internet and stream and share content across multiple devices in their network. Over the past year, the company has helped to define TV 2.0 and connected entertainment with a range of products that make it easy to enjoy home and Internet-based content on HDTVs and other devices.

To build on its momentum in the TV connectivity market, NETGEAR today announced availability of its 3DHD Wireless Home Theater Networking Kit (WNHDB3004), the first solution capable of reliably delivering jitter-free 1080p high-definition video streams throughout the home without wires. This product is ideal for connecting today's Internet enabled HD and 3DHD TVs to the Internet for video streaming.  The company also announced fast and affordable options to its home network storage lineup – the ReadyNAS® Ultra 2 and Ultra Plus Series with TiVo recording and Skifta, making it easier than ever to watch home-stored music, photos and video on any device in the house.

Business – Smart IT, not Big IT

Business customers demand reliable, affordable and user friendly solutions. In September, NETGEAR introduced a new network management software platform that provides customers with powerful centralized management across all NETGEAR IT products, including Ethernet Switching, Campus WiFi, Network Storage, and Security. Now, customers and partners can build modern solutions around cloud computing, virtualization, security, and mobility with a very user friendly platform for network management.

In October, NETGEAR announced three hybrid cloud firsts for its ReadyNAS storage product line – free online storage for up to two years, a cloud-based file server option, and  partner portals to make it easier for partners to manage customer implementations.

The recent addition of the new UTM50 to NETGEAR's ProSecure® line of security appliances strengthens the NETGEAR offering to businesses to protect against the exponential growth in the number of virus and malware threats, dangerous websites, spam emails, and hackers that threaten business environments.

Today, the company announced a number of developments to further address virtualization, cloud computing and network infrastructure needs. The NETGEAR ReadyNAS Pro Series is a family of desktop storage products designed specifically for small businesses or remote and branch offices that need business-class features at an affordable price point. In addition, Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 certification is now available on NETGEAR's business storage products for Hyper-V in business environments. The company also rolled out ReadyNAS Replicate™, a cloud-based data replication solution that provides small to mid-sized businesses, plus remote and branch offices, with a simple, cost-effective way to manage data backup, restore and disaster recovery across ReadyNAS units, local or remote. Other business product announcements included four additions to the ProSafe® Plus Switch family, designed for growing businesses with growing network needs.

From a customer service perspective, NETGEAR today announced that it will provide free next business day on-site replacement service for many of its business products. This service will be launched in many markets across Europe. This service offering, in addition to NETGEAR's Lifetime warranty on ProSafe products, provides a unique benefit to all business customers.

Internet Service Providers – Everything over IP and the Evolution toward 100Mbps

NETGEAR supplies top Internet service providers (ISPs) with retail-proven, whole home solutions for their customers. The company has created strong demand for its ISP solutions by offering a wide range of open and flexible products with low development, maintenance and support costs, along with NETGEAR's famous reliability and performance.

Worldwide, NETGEAR delivered 41 customized home gateways and routers to 29 leading service providers in the past year, spanning DOCSIS, mobile broadband, FTTH gigabit Ethernet and VDSL, many with integrated voice capabilities. The company has introduced next generation technologies that deliver higher throughput, reliability and wireless reach as well as innovative media delivery, auto configuration and vertical services capabilities for service providers.

NETGEAR's accelerating momentum in the service provider industry is evidenced by its capture of the #1 market position in 100Mbps+ DOCSIS 3.0 gateways. DOCSIS 3 shipments tripled in Q3 2010 for NETGEAR, along with increased FTTx and mobile related product shipments. 

The company's entry last year into the mobile broadband market is now beginning to bear fruit as mobile operators upgrade their 3G networks to the highest performing 3G base stations (HSPA+ & DC-HSPA up to 42 Mbps) and introduce their 4G networks (LTE & WiMAX up to 100Mbps). This high performance wireless technology, just now becoming available for mass market deployment, enables NETGEAR to offer mobile broadband gateways with performance that rival today's wired broadband options.

NETGEAR's market leadership in retail and service provider-proven products enables service providers to deliver SaaS applications and IP multimedia everywhere to all 3 screens: computer, TV and mobile devices. This is driving the company's increasing sales of gateways, routers, switches, WiFi video bridges, powerline and NAS products to service providers for residential deployments.

To date, millions of consumers have chosen NETGEAR products to stream movies, TV and music from the Internet, share photos, play games, shop, read, email, access apps and social networks, connect to printers and network storage, and share remote access with friends and family. And more than 18 million businesses worldwide have broken free of the limitations of traditional enterprise vendors and deployed NETGEAR Smart IT networking, storage and security solutions.

About NETGEAR, Inc.

NETGEAR (NASDAQGM: NTGR) is a global networking company that delivers innovative products to consumers, businesses and Internet service providers. For consumers, the company makes high performance, dependable and easy home networking, storage and digital media products to connect people with the Internet and their content and devices. For businesses, NETGEAR provides networking, storage and security solutions without the cost and complexity of Big IT. The company also supplies all of the top Internet service providers with retail proven, whole home solutions for their customers. NETGEAR products are built on a variety of proven technologies such as wireless, Ethernet and powerline, with a focus on reliability and ease-of-use. NETGEAR products are sold in over 28,000 retail locations around the globe, and through more than 37,000 value-added resellers. The company's headquarters are in San Jose, Calif., with additional offices in 25 countries. NETGEAR is an ENERGY STAR® partner. More information is available at http://www.NETGEAR.com or by calling (408) 907-8000. Connect with NETGEAR at http://twitter.com/NETGEAR and http://www.facebook.com/NETGEAR.

©2010 NETGEAR, Inc., NETGEAR, the NETGEAR logo, NeoTV, ProSafe, ProSecure, Push2TV, X-RAID, ReadyNAS and ReadyNAS Replicate are trademarks or registered trademarks of NETGEAR, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Other brand and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders. Information is subject to change without notice. All rights reserved.

Safe Harbor Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 for NETGEAR, Inc.:

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Specifically, statements concerning NETGEAR's business and the expected performance characteristics, specifications, reliability, market acceptance, market growth, specific uses, user feedback and market position of NETGEAR's products and technology are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Safe Harbor. These statements are based on management's current expectations and are subject to certain risks and uncertainties, including, without limitation, the following: the actual price, performance and ease of use of NETGEAR's products may not meet the price, performance and ease of use requirements of customers; product performance may be adversely affected by real world operating conditions; failure of products may under certain circumstances cause permanent loss of end user data; new viruses or Internet threats may develop that challenge the effectiveness of security features in NETGEAR's products; the ability of NETGEAR to market and sell its products and technology; the impact and pricing of competing products; and the introduction of alternative technological solutions. Further information on potential risk factors that could affect NETGEAR and its business are detailed in the Company's periodic filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including, but not limited to, those risks and uncertainties listed in the section entitled "Part II - Item 1A. Risk Factors," pages 36 through 52, in the Company's quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the fiscal second quarter ended June 27, 2010, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on August 5, 2010. NETGEAR undertakes no obligation to release publicly any revisions to any forward-looking statements contained herein to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events.

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SOURCE NETGEAR, Inc.