EXABYTES NETWORK JOINS MICROSOFT BIZSPARK FORAY TO DRIVE ENTRETPRENEURIAL DEVELOPMENT IN MALAYSIA

Involvement of Malaysia’s Top Hosting Company Testament to Vibrant Software Industry & Growth Potential of Start-ups in Penang

Penang, March 19, 2009 – Exabytes Network Sdn. Bhd., Malaysia’s leading web hosting company announced at the SCoPe ICT Expo today that it has joined the Microsoft BizSpark program as the first Microsoft BizSpark Hosting Partner in Malaysia, to help accelerate the success of local start-up businesses.

“This appointment as a BizSpark Hosting Partner is a major milestone for Exabytes as it not only opens us up to a whole new global market of the Bizspark startup community worldwide, but enables us to play a significant role in developing Malaysia’s software industry as a BizSpark Hosting Partner,” said Chan Kee Siak, CEO of Exa Byte Networks Sdn. Bhd.

Exabytes’ move to join the Microsoft BizSpark community will provide hosted servers onto which BizSpark SPLA software licences are installed, affording Malaysian start-ups the opportunity to obtain free use of Microsoft development tools, production SPLA licences and Web hosting services, especially businesses that aim to deliver their solutions over the Internet.

According to Peter Tam, Director of Local Software Innovation at Microsoft Malaysia, signing on a hosting partner marks the next phase of BizSpark’s investment, above the RM300million already pledged over the next three years, into the local software economy. He said this partnership will provide start-ups access to free hosted production licenses for up to three years, which will promote greater development of web-based software solutions and offerings over the internet.

“There is still great potential surrounding the use of the internet and we are essentially opening two doors with this phase: offering new start-ups the opportunity to create fresh and exciting web-based applications and existing ones the chance to scale their businesses and efficiently deliver products and services to a global clientele. Either way, together we are developing the local software economy through intellectual property (IP) creation, entrepreneurial development and revenue generation,” Tam said, citing that starts-ups are proving to more innovative than ever before.

This announcement also makes the Penang-based company one out of only 25 worldwide who have qualified to be BizSpark Hosting Partners at this point in time. The company’s success is a testament to the potential of the vibrant software industry in Penang, which has recently thrown its support behind the BizSpark program as one of the key catalysts for capacity-building and development of the states’ software economy.

“Penang has got the right conditions to boost its software industry and the Microsoft BizSpark program will bring much value to Penang’s effort in this area,” said Dato' Lee Kah Choon, Chairman of the Executive Committee of investPenang at the Expo’s press conference.

Jeffrey Lim, Chairman, Software Consortium of Penang (SCoPe) agreed, saying, “As evident in the SCoPe ICT Expo today, Penang has a strong legacy in entrepreneurship and having a highly skilled and technical workforce that can be enhanced by great industry-government partnerships. We commend Microsoft’s for its support of SCoPe’s efforts to further develop the software industry in Penang. The BizSpark program will jumpstart a lot of innovative startups that not only will be the future giants of Penang, but also Malaysia.”

“Exabyte is a prime example of a local start-up success story. By joining the foray, it will be helping many other start-ups achieve the success it has now come to experience and we look forward to seeing that come to pass,” concluded Tam from Microsoft.

Microsoft BizSpark is a three-year program made available to technopreneurs and start-ups that have formed private companies developing software-based products or services and have been in business for less than three years with an annual revenue of less than USD$0.5 million or RM1.75 million.

By joining the program, a start-up has access to Microsoft’s current full-featured development tools, platform technologies, and “production licenses” for software hosted in the “software as a service” model free of charge for up to three years. The production licenses include Windows Server (all versions, up to and including Enterprise); SQL Server (all versions); Office SharePoint Server; Systems Center, and BizTalk Server. For more information in Microsoft BizSpark, please visit: www.microsoft.com/bizspark.