Somers, N.Y. and Sunnyvale, Calif. - July 26, 2005 - IBM and Network Appliance (NASDAQ:NTAP) today announced their intention to extend their strong relationship to encompass the growing technologies of virtualization and blade solutions. The focus is on combining IBM's storage virtualization technologies and the full line of NetApp® V-Series and FAS storage systems into integrated solutions, signaling the beginning of efforts to collaborate to exploit the synergies between the companies' respective virtualization technologies.

NetApp also announced today that it plans to join IBM as one of nine founding members in the new Blade.org industry community. The community was conceived to enhance the relationships between the founding members and to serve as a catalyst for the industry to create new blade technology. NetApp is already providing back-end storage systems for IBM eServer® BladeCenter™.

"IBM is pleased to enhance its already strong relationship with NetApp to extend virtualization solutions across key customer segments," said Rich Lechner, vice president, TotalStorage Solutions at IBM. "Together, IBM and NetApp will be better positioned to provide clients with proven enterprise-scale virtualization solutions based on open standards, allowing customers to leverage their existing IT investments."

"Customers today need to simplify their infrastructures and reduce complexities," said Patrick Rogers, vice president of partners and products at Network Appliance. "Virtualization and capabilities such as thin provisioning in our V-Series are key enablers to help companies reduce costs. Network Appliance is pleased to extend its relationship with IBM on this front."

The companies today announced three planned elements for their combined approach to virtualization:

Storage virtualization can help simplify infrastructures by managing the complexities of the underlying storage environments and dramatically reduce costs associated with IT management by enabling the creation of a single virtual pool of information across the enterprise. Storage virtualization is a key component of IBM's Information On Demand strategy which is helping clients to integrate their business processes to better meet core functional requirements.

IBM TotalStorage SAN Volume Controller is designed to increase the flexibility of storage infrastructures by enabling changes to the physical storage with minimal or no disruptions to applications. Now with the expanded support for many non-IBM storage systems, including NetApp, SAN Volume Controller can enable a tiered storage environment to better allow customers to match the cost of the storage to the value of their data. SAN Volume Controller combines the capacity from multiple disk storage systems into a single storage pool, which can be managed from a central point. The coupling of NetApp V-Series and SAN Volume Controller will enable the simplified management and data protection of the virtualized storage environment through the IBM TotalStorage Open Software family products.

The NetApp V-Series and storage systems brings the rich suite of Data ONTAP™ software including Snap and Flex technology for data management, data protection and disaster recovery to a virtualized pool of storage across multiple vendor arrays. This combines with the block virtualization and data migration/replication capabilities of the SAN Volume Controller for a comprehensive storage management solution.

The IBM TotalStorage SAN Volume Controller products are available today through IBM and IBM Business Partners. NetApp V-Series is available today through NetApp and NetApp channel partners.

About IBM
IBM is the world's largest information technology company, with 80 years of leadership in helping businesses innovate. Drawing on resources from across IBM and key IBM Business Partners, IBM offers a wide range of services, solutions and technologies that enable customers, large and small, to take full advantage of the new era of e-business. For more information about IBM, visit http://www.ibm.com.

About Network Appliance
Network Appliance is a world leader in unified storage solutions for today's data-intensive enterprise. Since its inception in 1992, Network Appliance has delivered technology, product, and partner firsts that simplify data management. Information about Network Appliance™ solutions and services is available at www.netapp.com.

IBM, the IBM e-business logo, and TotalStorage are trademarks of IBM Corporation. NetApp is a registered trademark and Network Appliance and Data ONTAP are trademarks of Network Appliance, Inc. Other products names may be trademarks of their respective owners. Statements concerning IBM's and Network Appliance future development plans and schedules are made for planning purposes only, and are subject to change or withdrawal without notice.

"Safe Harbor" Statement under U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995
Statements in this press release may include forward-looking statements within the meaning of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements include any statement regarding future events or the future financial performance of Network Appliance, Inc. that involves risks or uncertainties. In evaluating these statements, readers should specifically consider various factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those indicated, including without limitation: continuing decline in the general economic conditions, customer demand for products and services, customer acceptance of product architectures, increased competition, and other important factors as described in Network Appliance, Inc. reports and documents filed from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its mostly recently submitted 10-K and 10-Q.

Press Contacts:
Lisa Lanspery
IBM Corp.
646-598-6171
lisalans@us.ibm.com

Jodi Baumann
Network Appliance, Inc.
408-822-3974
jodi.baumann@netapp.com