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Alternative Technology Teams with Key Infrastructure Vendors to Support HSPD-12 Implementations.

Network infrastructure capabilities; application access, optimization & unified threat management are essential to the success of HSPD-12.

Englewood, CO., March 15, 2007 – Alternative Technology, the leading specialty distributor of thin-client/server-based computing, edge infrastructure, virtualization, and government-approved security solutions, has engaged its key infrastructure vendors in support of HSPD-12 implementations.

HSPD-12 is the 12th Homeland Security Presidential Directive, which orders federal agencies to implement a mandatory common identity management system for their employees and contractors. In 2006 Alternative Technology formed an HSPD-12/FIPS 201 Convergence Team to addresses interoperability and compliance issues surrounding the many components required to meet the HSPD-12 mandate. Building on those identity management solutions, Alternative Technology’s HSPD-12 infrastructure vendors including Fortinet, Packeteer and Radware have been engaged to ensure that HSPD-12 implementations are network-accessible, optimized, and secure from intrusions and viruses.

Alternative Technology’s infrastructure vendors offer off-the-shelf products and packaged solutions for channel partners and government agencies. Ongoing activities are currently underway with leading prime contractors and subcontractors that will be supported by Alternative Technology’s GSA Schedule (GS-35F 0296R) and its network of VARs and socially and economically disadvantaged, or 8(a), resellers in the USA and Canada.

“It is important for federal agencies to understand key infrastructure requirements to properly deploy an HSPD-12 solution set, including quality of service, redundancy, and virus protection,” said John Stubbs, vice president, Alternative Technology. “Alternative Technology is teaming the industry’s leading identity management and smart card vendors with leading network infrastructure, optimization, fault tolerance and redundancy, and security vendors to deliver complete HSPD-12/FIPS 201 solutions to both systems integrators and solutions providers for government agencies.”

Stubbs continued, “These companies offer proven deployments throughout federal, state, and local government organizations, with products and services that are tested for interoperability and that are certified to meet or exceed all HSPD-12/FIPS 201 specifications.”

"With network security threats increasing in sophistication, it is critical for government agencies to deploy comprehensive security that provides the highest levels of protection and integration without sacrificing network performance,” said Tom Hance, vice president of federal operations at Fortinet. “FortiGate multi-threat security systems deliver complete content protection required to increase network security within HSPD-12 implementations for federal government agencies, as well as the military, public safety and civilian sectors."

Fortinet's high-performance systems integrate several security functions, such as antivirus, firewall, virtual private networking (VPN), intrusion detection/prevention, antispam, Web content filtering, and traffic shaping into a single, integrated platform. Fortinet’s FortiGate™ multi-threat security systems either currently meet, or are in the process of obtaining the following important government certifications: Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS): 140-2; Common Criteria: EAL 4 for firewall and EAL 4 for antivirus; and ICSA certification for: firewall, antivirus, IPSec, SSL, Network IPS, client antivirus detection, cleaning and antispyware.

“PacketShaper® technology prioritizes HSPD-12 application traffic within the network infrastructure by identifying protocols (Online Certified Service Protocol - OCSP), prioritizing those protocols or traffic types, accelerating that traffic, protecting that protocol, and generally improving the user's experience,” said Arturo Cazares, vice president, worldwide sales, Packeteer. "With a long roster of military and government clients, Packeteer continues to lead the industry in offering WAN optimization. By working closely with Alternative Technology and its team of HSPD-12 Convergence and infrastructure vendors we will greatly increase the number of defense agency customers and contractors that we can serve, as well as the speed and effectiveness of HSPD-12 implementations around the world."

Packeteer’s PacketShaper® technology provides WAN application optimization that consolidates network visibility, traffic shaping, bandwidth management and Quality of Service (QoS) capabilities, application acceleration and centralized management functions into a single, easy-to-deploy device. The software provides Layer 7 application classification and monitoring and advanced QoS functions that protect mission-critical applications by prioritizing application-specific traffic. In addition, appliances using PacketShaper® increase existing network capacity through advanced compression and acceleration techniques to help customers avoid costly network upgrades.

“We recognize the many challenges that government agencies have in safeguarding their highly sensitive data and applications. The matter of security as it relates to HSPD-12 is two-fold – involving first, appropriate transactional processing, and second, the protection of the supporting authentication technologies,” said Charles Robertello vice president of sales, Americas, Radware. “Our end-to-end application delivery capabilities enable government agencies to not only meet high availability and performance demands but also address security concerns at the data, application, and network levels for the enhanced integrity and compliance of their infrastructures.”

Radware: For Radware, acceleration is but one critical component in an integrated application delivery solution. Radware’s application delivery suite includes the AppXcel™ application accelerator appliance with web compression, SSL offloading and HTTP multiplexing, in addition to application delivery optimization (AppDirector™)and application security (DefensePro®)functionality. AppXcel provides an extensible architecture for adding on services such as web application firewall or XML-based Web services. Radware recently announced an integrated offering with Forum that provides the industry's first certified Web services solution to meet security standards requirements for managing the exchange of sensitive data as outlined in Homeland Security Presidential Directive (HSPD-12).

HSPD-12/FIPS 201 Convergence Team members and their offerings include:

Through Alternative Technology’s HSPD-12 Program, channel partners and government agencies can purchase complete HSPD-12 solutions -- or purchase products and services separately -- with the flexibility to leverage existing infrastructure, build and enhance their capabilities as budgets and resources permit.

About Alternative Technology (www.alttech.com)

Alternative Technology is the leading specialty distributor for Value Added Resellers who need products and services targeted at Thin-client/Server-based Computing, Edge Infrastructure, Virtualization, Security, and Wireless markets. Driving the widespread adoption of leading edge technologies by bridging the gaps between products and services to solve critical business problems, Alternative identifies business issues that are key to our markets and offer multi-vendor solutions that drive demand back through our reseller partners. Alternative Technology, headquartered in Englewood, Colorado, has offices in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, Carlsbad, California, and Mississauga, Canada. Alternative Technology is a wholly owned subsidiary of Arrow Enterprise Computing Solutions, which is a business unit of Arrow Electronics, Inc. [NYSE: ARW]. For more information, go to: www.AltTech.com, e-mail: sales@AltTech.com or call toll-free: 800.544.7674 (USA), or 866.240.9991 (Canada).

About Fortinet (www.fortinet.com)

Fortinet is the pioneer and market-leading provider of ASIC-accelerated unified threat management systems, which are used by enterprises and service providers to increase their security while reducing total operating costs. Fortinet solutions were built from the ground up to integrate multiple levels of security protection--including firewall, antivirus, intrusion prevention, Web content filtering, VPN, spyware prevention and antispam--providing customers a way to protect multiple threats as well as blended threats. Leveraging a custom ASIC and unified interface, Fortinet solutions offer advanced security functionality that scales from remote office to chassis-based solutions with integrated management and reporting. Fortinet solutions have won multiple awards around the world and are the only security products that are certified eight times over by the ICSA (firewall, antivirus, IPSec, SSL, IDS, client antivirus detection, cleaning and antispyware). Fortinet is privately held and based in Sunnyvale, California.

About Packeteer (www.packeteer.com)

Packeteer, Inc. (NASDAQ: PKTR) is the global market leader in high-performance, intelligent WAN Application Delivery. With over 60,000 systems deployed at more than 7,000 customers worldwide, Packeteer solutions increase WAN capacity and accelerate and ensure predictable network application performance for all users anywhere in the distributed enterprise. By automatically classifying over 600 applications and protocols and utilizing the most comprehensive network monitoring, QoS, WAFS and acceleration technologies, Packeteer solutions improve business operational efficiency and provide customers with a rapid return on investment. For more information, contact Packeteer at +1 408 873-4400 or visit the company's web site at www.packeteer.com.

About Radware (www.radware.com)

Radware (NASDAQ:RDWR) is the global leader in integrated application delivery solutions, assuring the full availability, maximum performance and complete security of all business critical networked applications while dramatically cutting operating and -scaling costs. More than 5,000 enterprises and carriers worldwide use Radware application-smart switches to drive business productivity and improve profitability by adding critical application intelligence to their IP infrastructure, making networks more responsive to specific business processes. Radware's APSolute product family provides the most complete set of application front-end, remote access and security capabilities for application-smart networking to ensure faster, more reliable and secure business transactions. Learn more on how Radware application delivery solutions can enable you to get the most of your investments in IT infrastructure and people.

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Media Contacts:

For Alternative Technology
Mark Rieger
Stanton & Associates Marketing & Public Relations
mrieger@stantonpr.com
303-520-4524

For Fortinet
Jennifer Leggio
Fortinet Inc
408 486 7876
jleggio@fortinet.com

Packeteer
Kevin Gallagher
Gallagher Group Communications
925-964-0905
kevin@gg-comm.com

For Radware
Rob Halpin
Fleishman-Hillard
+1 212-453-2317
rob.halpin@fleishman.com

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