NETGEAR showcases complete range of ReadyNAS solutions at GITEX Technology Week 2007

The company's participation at GITEX Technology Week is in line with its aggressive growth plans, which aims to capitalize on the promising forecasts by storage experts who have predicted that the Network Attached Storage (NAS) market in the Middle East will grow by up to 40 per cent in 2008.

NAS technology is widely appreciated and accepted in mature markets such as Europe and the USA, and the Middle East is following suit with rising demand from small and medium businesses, professionals and home consumers. In tandem with its existing SC101 Storage Central products, NETGEAR will leverage its recent USD 60 million acquisition of the ReadyNAS product family and product pipeline from the privately held Infrant Technologies Inc. to offer a full line-up of feature-rich, scalable and cost-effective storage solutions to the emerging markets.

"Our acquisition of Infrant Technologies allows us to better address the growing demand for NAS solutions in the Middle East, especially in the GCC region. With technologically advanced features and a competitive price range, we are poised to fast track our growth program, improve our share of the market and increase margins. We expect our participation at GITEX 2007 to further consolidate our hold on the market in view of the event's extensive reach and prominent coverage,"

said Ahmad Zeidan, Channel Sales Manager of NETGEAR Middle East.

The ReadyNAS family implements redundant array of independent disk (RAID) data protection, enabling users to store and protect critical data easily, efficiently and intelligently. The ReadyNAS line-up is also powered by Infrant's proprietary network storage processor, the Linux-based RAIDiator operating system, and patent-pending Expandable Protection (X-RAID) technology, which allows automatic RAID volume expansion as additional drives are added. With X-RAID, users can easily add disks as they need or can afford without fear of losing data and without having to reformat volumes.

Other features of the ReadyNAS product line include a sleek and compact design that makes it suitable for home or office use, built-in media server capabilities that allow users to access content directly without going through a PC, and handling of multiple HD video streams, making it one of the few NAS solutions in the market offering such capability. NETGEAR's ReadyNAS solutions also bring the reliability of an enterprise-level backup solution to the small office with an integrated processor and multi-drive redundancy, ensuring protection against single drive failure.

"The growing demand for NAS technology is driven by an increasing number of small and medium business enterprises that are becoming more aware of the advantages of having NAS systems in their IT infrastructure. NAS is simply the best solution to enhance data accessibility and management for small and medium businesses, and NETGEAR's ReadyNAS offers the best value in terms of cost-effectiveness, performance and reliability," concluded Zeidan.

NETGEAR is committed to providing innovative networking solutions for small and medium business as well as home users. The company's product offerings enable users to share internet access, peripherals, files, digital media content and applications among multiple personal computers and other internet-enabled devices.