McDATA Sharpens Tools for ESCON to FICON Migration

   New Firmware Enhancements for the McDATA Intrepid FICON Converter

   McDATA Corporation (Nasdaq: MCDTA)(Nasdaq: MCDT), a leading
provider of data access solutions, announced the general availability
of new firmware for its unique Intrepid FICON Converter (IFC), a
cost-effective solution for attaching ESCON peripherals directly to
FICON channels.
   The McDATA IFC is a key component of McDATA's portfolio of
mainframe solutions and another tool to help customers get the most
out of their existing SAN investments. By providing native FICON to
ESCON protocol conversion, customers can enjoy the performance and
scalability benefits of FICON, while reducing costs and protecting
investments. This new firmware release provides additional solution
support to meet various customer requirements for connectivity across
campus, metro and wide area networks, including support for FICON
direct attached, fabric attached and cascaded fabrics as well as
extended ESCON fabrics using McDATA's USDX platform. In addition, this
release provides support for additional devices, including ESCON
director and NCR Teradata support, and delivers significant
improvements in system performance.
   "McDATA continues to bring products and solutions to market that
improve storage networking interoperability and extend the value of
our customers' investments," said Raj Das, vice president of product
marketing, McDATA. "With these new firmware enhancements, we deliver
increased configuration flexibility and provide the solution support
and performance required by our global mainframe customers."

   About McDATA (www.mcdata.com)

   McDATA (Nasdaq: MCDTA)(Nasdaq: MCDT) is the leading provider of
data access solutions, helping customers build, globally connect,
optimize and centrally manage data infrastructures across SAN, MAN and
WAN environments. With nearly 25 years' experience developing SAN
products, services and solutions, McDATA is the trusted partner in the
world's largest data centers, connecting more than two-thirds of all
networked data.

   Forward-Looking Statements

   This press release contains statements about expected future
events that are forward-looking and subject to risks and
uncertainties. Readers are urged to consider statements that include
the terms "believes," "belief," "expects," "plans," "objectives,"
"estimates," "anticipates," "intends," "targets," or the like to be
uncertain and forward-looking. Factors that could cause actual results
to differ and vary materially from expectations include, but are not
limited to, McDATA's relationships with EMC, IBM and Hitachi Data
Systems and the level of their orders, aggressive price competition by
numerous other SAN and IP switch suppliers, OEM qualification of our
new products -- such as the Intrepid 10000 Director, integration of
CNT's sales and marketing functions, manufacturing constraints,
constraints in obtaining third party product for resale and other risk
factors that are disclosed in McDATA's filings with the Securities and
Exchange Commission. These cautionary statements by McDATA should not
be construed as exhaustive or as any admission regarding the adequacy
of disclosures made by McDATA. All cautionary statements should be
read as being applicable to all forward-looking statements wherever
they appear. McDATA does not undertake any obligation to publicly
update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result
of new information, future events or otherwise.