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Corporate Backgrounder

Company Vision

Coactive Networks connects networks to the real world, extending Internet access to all of the devices, appliances, and computers in our homes and businesses. Coactive's commercial and residential gateways connect common devices such as thermostats, meters, security systems, lighting fixtures, appliances, and home automation systems to the Internet along with PCs. Coactive’s products enable the Internet to move beyond connecting computers, and enter our physical lives via a new class of telemetry e-services that are real, personal, and essential for consumers and businesses.

Connecting Networks to the Real World

Coactive is dedicated to enabling the Internet to reach every electronic device in our lives, just as it now reaches computers, phones and televisions. Coactive accomplishes this connection via the e-service gateway, a new category of product that includes both commercial and residential gateways. Allied Business Intelligence defines the residential gateway as “an intelligent hardware device connecting home devices and appliances to the Internet.” The commercial gateway accomplishes the same for the devices and control systems in a commercial building or industrial facility.

With a single affordable gateway delivering Internet access, multiple home networks, and local intelligence, the Internet becomes the vehicle that allows the networked home and office to become an integral part of daily life. You have continual access, not just to stock quotes and e-commerce transactions, but to things that are personally relevant—telemetry e-services that involve actual devices and appliances in your home. You can save money on your power bill, check up on an elderly relative, see whether you left the stove or iron on, remotely disarm the security system to let a neighbor in, and receive instant alerts upon detection of intrusion, water leakage, or unusual temperatures. By connecting networks to the real world, Coactive brings the potential of the Internet to a new level as a resource for the individual.

The Market for Commercial and Residential Gateways

Coactive is positioned at the center of an emerging multi-billion dollar market driven by the synergies between home networking, broadband connections, and mobile Internet access. The Cahners In-Stat Group predicts that the market for residential gateways will grow to $5 billion by 2005. Coactive is unique in this market in our focus and experience in telemetry, the connection to devices beyond PCs. Surveys by Parks Associates, the Internet Home Alliance and others consistently rank telemetry e-services such as energy management, security, and lighting control as among the top home networking services of interest to consumers. Coactive is the leader in Internet telemetry with a highly integrated third-generation gateway platform, and is the leader in bringing telemetry e-services to consumers via their local electric utility as well as via telecommunications companies. By providing access to multiple home networks of devices as well as the local intelligence to react to the data from them, Coactive enables an ever-expanding new world of e-services that build customer loyalty and create new revenue streams.

Coactive Products

Coactive products are intelligent, embedded networking devices designed from the ground up to be flexible, scalable, and cost-effective. Based on a third-generation platform, Coactive products lead the market, combining an open approach with the reliability of proven, field tested performance.

The Coactive Connector® product family is a series of highly integrated gateways which interconnect multiple networks, translate protocols, and provide local data logging, alarm generation, and programmability. The Coactive Connector acts as a thin server to provide access to control data using open standards including HTTP, CORBA, OPC, ODBC, and Java. The Coactive Router family of products enables commercial and industrial control systems to be seamlessly extended over a LAN, enterprise network, or the Internet.

Coactive Technology

Coactive’s IOConnect Architecture™ is a patent-pending embedded distributed object technology that provides the reliability, scalability, and manageability required for large-scale Internet telemetry systems. By abstracting control information, providing a flexible environment for data translation and manipulation, and publishing a powerful distributed object interface, the IOConnect Architecture addresses the complex issues surrounding real-time device access while streamlining application development.

Coactive Networks is dedicated to the open standards model, and has spearheaded standardization efforts while delivering advanced products to the market. Committed to providing customers with solutions that leverage the latest developments in networking technology, Coactive continues to pioneer innovations in network connectivity.

• OSGi Founding Member
• Internet Home Alliance Member
• UPnP Forum Member
• LonMark Partner

The Team

Coactive Networks is a privately held company backed by the investment affiliates of 3Com, Detroit Edison, NewPower, and SAP, along with leading venture capital firms including Fenway Partners, CIBC, Charter Ventures, Chase Venture Capital, Portview Communications Partners, TechFund Capital, Tribridge International, and Upstart Capital. Coactive's management team includes proven business expertise in founding companies and bringing them to profitability in fast-growth markets, while Coactive's engineering team comprises a unique combination of talents with a core competence in low-cost embedded devices and a leadership position in control networking. This unusual mix of talent is complemented by a strong Advisory Board, consisting of recognized industry leaders and senior executives who provide the company with guidance and direction from related segments in technology and business.

The Coactive Advisory Board includes:

• Steve Dukes, President & CEO, Imaginary Universes, LLC; former VP of MediaOne and TCI
• Richard Bilas, Commissioner and former President of the California Public Utilities Commission
• John Seely Brown, Chief Scientist, Xerox Corporation, and former Director of Xerox PARC
• Charles Fraser, President of Charles E. Fraser Co, Ltd. and president of the Community Design Institute
• Amory Lovins, founder and co-CEO, Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI)
• Bill Owens, Co-CEO and Vice Chairman, Teledesic Corp.; former President, COO, SAIC
• Paul Saffo, Director, Institute For the Future
• Jay Warrior, Laboratory Scientist and Department Manager for Wireless Solutions, Agilent Labs

Coactive’s management team includes:

• Gordon Campbell, Chairman of the Board, is a leading pioneer in high technology with proven business expertise in growing companies, and is considered a driving force in the evolution of the semiconductor, personal computer, networking, and the Internet sectors. Campbell is the founder of technology incubator Techfarm, and has founded and started up many technology companies including Cobalt Networks, 3DFX Interactive, SEEQ Technology and CHIPS and Technologies.
  
  
• David Gaw, President, CEO and Co-Founder, is considered an industry expert in intelligent systems development, having worked at the forefront of emerging technologies for over a decade. Since Coactive's inception in 1993, David has parlayed this expertise to assemble and lead a stellar technical team that is pioneering the new digital home. David previously held senior positions at Advanced Decision Systems, and holds an M.S. in Computer Science from Drexel University, and a B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Florida.
  
  
• Tom Rickey, Chief Financial Officer, is a seasoned executive, with more than 20 years of experience in the e-commerce, software, and telecom industries. Tom has held executive positions at Branders.com, WordStar International, Netsource Communications, and United Technologies Corporation. Tom is a CPA and holds a B.A. in Business Administration from Bucknell, as well as an M.BA. in Business Administration from Indiana University.
  
  
• Ed Koch, Chief Technology Officer and Co-Founder, is an expert in networking technologies and specializes in embedded systems design. Ed has held senior engineering positions at SEI, Navigation Technologies, and Ausdata, and holds an M.S.E.E. from the University of Florida, and a B.S.E.E. from the University of Florida.
  
  
• Adam Marsh, VP Marketing, Chief Strategy Officer and Co-Founder, is an industry expert in the area of converging technologies, having lead all facets of Coactive's strategic product direction and marketing strategy. Adam's background is in academia, having previously performed research in theoretical physics and mathematics. Adam holds an M.S. in Physics from M.I.T., and a B.S. in Mathematics and Physics from the University of California at Berkeley.
  
  
• Christian Christiansen, VP Engineering, is an accomplished engineer and seasoned executive, with more than 15 years of research and development experience including Bluetooth development, ASIC design, and ISO 9000 processes. Christian has held research and development positions at GN Netcom and GN Danavox, and holds a degree in Electrical Engineering from Copenhagen Technical University.
  
  
• Gus Ezcurra, VP Sales and Business Development, is a 17-year sales veteran in the technology arena, having held executive positions with Harris Corporation, AM General, and Hybrid Networks, a manufacturer of broadband data communication systems. Gus holds a B.S. in Economics from California Polytechnic University.

Press Contacts:

Sonia Gomez Coactive Networks 415.289.7813 sgomez@coactive.com

Michele Spring Radiate PR 408.267.0952 mspring@radiatepr.com

Michelle Friedman Radiate PR 415.928.2863 mfriedman@radiatepr.com

©Coactive Networks 2001. Coactive, the Coactive Logo, Connecting Networks to the Real World, Coactive Connector, and IOConnect Architecture are trademarks or registered trademarks of Coactive Networks, Inc., in the US and other countries. All other brands and names are the property of their respective owners.