Leading Analyst Firm Positions NetApp as a Leader Within Midrange Enterprise Disk Array Magic Quadrant

SUNNYVALE, CA--(Marketwire - December 17, 2009) - NetApp (NASDAQ: NTAP) today announced that it has been positioned by Gartner, Inc. in the Leaders quadrant for midrange enterprise disk arrays. In a recently released research note, "Magic Quadrant for Midrange Enterprise Disk Arrays,"(1) Gartner asserts, "Vendors in the Leaders quadrant have the highest scores for their ability to execute and completeness of vision. A midrange disk array storage vendor in the Leaders quadrant has the market share, credibility, and marketing and sales capabilities needed to drive the acceptance of new technologies. They demonstrate a clear understanding of market needs; they are innovators and thought leaders; and, they have well-articulated plans that customers and prospects can use when designing their storage infrastructures and strategies. In addition, they have a presence in the five major geographical regions, consistent financial performance, and broad platform support."

"In my opinion, our position in the Gartner Leaders quadrant is a testament to NetApp's commitment to providing our customers with innovative storage and data management solutions that help them achieve and exceed their business objectives and reduce IT costs," said Manish Goel, executive vice president of Product Operations, NetApp. "Due to our unified architecture and industry-leading storage efficiency capabilities, NetApp® is an ideal storage infrastructure of choice for today's virtualized data center environments."

NetApp enables customers to drive down costs while driving up operational efficiencies in their data center thanks to a wide range of storage and data management technologies and products, including deduplication on primary and secondary data, thin provisioning, RAID-DP®, and FlexClone®, to name a few. NetApp's seamless integration with server and desktop virtualization infrastructures can provide customers with additional flexibility and savings. Furthermore, NetApp's unified storage architecture allows customers to address all of their storage and data management needs through a single platform and set of processes, helping to save time and resources.

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About the Magic Quadrant

The Magic Quadrant is copyrighted November 30, 2009 by Gartner, Inc. and is reused with permission. The Magic Quadrant is a graphical representation of a marketplace at and for a specific time period. It depicts Gartner's analysis of how certain vendors measure against criteria for that marketplace, as defined by Gartner. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in the Magic Quadrant, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors placed in the "Leaders" quadrant. The Magic Quadrant is intended solely as a research tool, and is not meant to be a specific guide to action. Gartner disclaims all warranties, express or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

About NetApp

NetApp creates innovative storage and data management solutions that accelerate business breakthroughs and deliver outstanding cost efficiency. Discover NetApp's passion for helping companies around the world go further, faster at www.netapp.com.

(1) "Magic Quadrant for Midrange Enterprise Disk Arrays" by Roger Cox, Stan Zaffos, and Pushan Rinnen, November 2009.

NetApp, the NetApp logo, Go further, faster, FlexClone, and RAID-DP are trademarks or registered trademarks of NetApp, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. All other brands or products are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders and should be treated as such.

Contact Information: Press Contact: Ryan Lowry NetApp (408) 822-7544 ryanl@netapp.com