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CIENA Increases European Presence

Company Expands London Headquarters and Adds to Regional Management Team

Ciena Corporation (Nasdaq: CIEN), a global provider of intelligent optical networking systems and software, today announced an increased commitment to its European business, opening a state-of-the-art customer demonstration facility and adding several executives to the regional management team.

The new facility is designed to provide live simulations of end-to-end intelligent optical network provisioning for customers. The customer demo lab is located in Ciena's new, expanded London office, home of the company's European headquarters.

The announced regional appointments include Steve Whipps, vice president of Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) sales.

Ciena's new 6,000 square foot customer demonstration laboratory provides live provisioning simulations using Ciena's intelligent switching and transport systems for long-haul and metropolitan applications. The lab houses a fully operational network, built on an open architecture that will also demonstrate interoperability with third party equipment. Ciena plans to open four dedicated training units at the facility and will offer customers hands-on classes to further demonstrate the economic and performance benefits of intelligent optical networking.

Ciena has strengthened its team in the region with the addition of several senior management members. Steve Whipps will spearhead and coordinate Ciena's sales efforts in the European markets as vice president of EMEA sales. Whipps joins Ciena from Cisco Systems, where he most recently served as general manager for service providers in Scandinavia. He will direct his team in educating the marketplace about optical networking and attracting leading service providers to the benefits of Ciena's next-generation equipment.

In addition to Whipps, the new European team members include:

• Justo Montero, director-general, southern Europe; formerly managing director of Spain for Nortel Networks; and
• Bernard Plaisant, global account director; formerly a global vice president at Nortel Networks.

"This experienced group of sales professionals bolsters the existing support in EMEA and enhances Ciena's position as the preferred supplier of optical solutions to new and incumbent carriers in the region," said Rafael de Ory, Ciena's managing director for Europe, Middle East and Africa. "Furthermore, the customer demonstration lab provides another effective tool to illustrate to these leading service providers the value and benefits of Ciena's intelligent optical networking solutions."

Ciena aims to develop and leverage the power of disruptive technologies to change the fundamental economics of building carrier-class tele- and data-communications networks and provide customers with a competitive advantage. Ciena's intelligent optical networking products are designed to cost-efficiently enable service providers to deliver any time, any size, any priority bandwidth to customers.