GoAhead Software acquires S3's embeddedMIND Business

Addition of embeddedMIND’s innovative on-device management infrastructure solution extends High Availability Software Leadership Position

BELLEVUE, Wash. -- January 14, 2009 -- GoAhead® Software, the worldwide leader in open standards-based high availability middleware, today announced that it is acquiring the embeddedMIND business of S3.The company will maintain embeddedMIND’s development facility and leverage the team’s skills and experience in configuration management to deliver an innovative set of broader solutions. The embeddedMIND team has been delivering best of breed configuration management software for several years with their commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) solution for network equipment manufacturers.

The product development landscape for today’s network equipment manufacturers is in a period of rapid change. Traditional development approaches based on internally developed proprietary software are much harder to maintain in today’s competitive environment. COTS-based solutions in operating systems and other software layershave enabled equipment manufacturers to bring solutions to market faster than ever. "Network Equipment Providers are under intense time-to-market pressure, and COTS by itself is no longer enough,” said Simon Stanley, Analyst at Large for Heavy Reading. “To further reduce development costs and risk, NEPs are looking to software providers for pre-integrated COTS components. GoAhead’s acquisition of embeddedMIND is a positive and promising step in this direction.”

“GoAhead is very excited to make embeddedMIND part of our suite of solutions”, said John Hansen, CEO of GoAhead Software. “The team at embeddedMIND understands the benefits of COTS as clearlyas anyone in the industry. We look forward to offering new capabilities that enhance the traditional benefits we have delivered to our customers for years - helping them continue to cut their time-to-market, lower costs, and focus scarce resources on differentiating their products in the marketplace.”

When combined with GoAhead’s high availability middleware, the acquisition offers attractive new options and a unique solution portfolio to the market. The embeddedMIND product will continue to be offered as a stand-alone solution. In addition, embeddedMIND will be fully integrated with GoAhead High Availability solutions – delivering a comprehensive set of system services for network equipment manufacturers that are looking for COTS to reduce risk and accelerate time-to-market.

“S3 has developed a successful business around the innovative embeddedMIND product in the configuration management space. We have a recognized brand and several Tier One customers. We believe that the GoAhead product portfolio and organization provide the perfect fit for the further growth and development of the embeddedMIND product technology and the delivery of a complete solution to customers,” said John O’Brien, CEO of S3.

About GoAhead Software:

GoAhead Software is the worldwide leader in open standards-based high availability middleware for carrier-grade and mission critical systems for which downtime is unacceptable. With more than 60,000 deployments, GoAhead has the only proven, open standards-based solution, reducing risk to meet time and cost requirements. GoAhead's leadership and long commitment to Service Availability Forum standards prevent vendor lock-in and protect your investments over time. Every day, industry leaders such as the US Navy, Lockheed Martin, Motorola, Alcatel-Lucent, and LG-Nortel entrust GoAhead to speed time to market, lower costs and focus on differentiation. For more information, visit www.goahead.com.

GoAhead, SelfReliant and SAFfire are registered trademarks or trademarks of GoAhead Software, Inc. All other brand and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.

About Silicon & Software Systems Ltd. (S3):

S3 is a leading provider of products, solutions and professional services to the Digital TV, Telehealth, Semiconductor IP and IC Design industries. Founded in 1986, S3 is a strong, growing technology organization with a large team of highly skilled engineers, system architects and business development professionals. S3 has a rich and diverse history in systems development, embedded software and IC design in consumer, wireless, networking, healthcare and videoapplications. S3 has design centers in Ireland (Dublin and Cork), Lisbon in Portugal, Wroclaw in Poland, Prague in the Czech Republic and San Jose in the USA, with sales offices and representatives globally. For further information please visit www.s3group.com.