Virtual Instruments Welcomes John W. Thompson to Board of Directors

Symantec Board Chairman and Former CEO Brings Global Technology Policy Perspective and Storage Industry Experience


SCOTTS VALLEY, CA--(Marketwire - October 26, 2009) - Virtual Instruments, a leader in virtual infrastructure optimization, today announced John W. Thompson, former chief executive officer and current chairman of the board of directors for Symantec, was appointed to Virtual Instruments' board of directors. Thompson will join the board effective immediately.

During his 10-year tenure as CEO of Symantec, Thompson transformed the company into a leader in security, storage and systems management solutions, delivering world class products to a global customer base, including both individuals and large-scale enterprises. Beyond his role at Symantec, Thompson served on the National Infrastructure Advisory Committee (NIAC), making recommendations regarding the security of the critical U.S. infrastructure, a role to which President George W. Bush appointed him. In addition, he was recently appointed to the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission to investigate the cause of the recent financial collapse and make recommendations to Congress on steps to avoid or mitigate the impact of a reoccurrence.

"As Virtual Instruments continues to expand globally, the wisdom and experience of an industry veteran like John Thompson becomes an invaluable asset," said Mark Urdahl, CEO of Virtual Instruments. "John's extensive understanding of systems and storage, combined with his perspective on how technology policy affects the national and global stage, will be critical input to help propel Virtual Instruments into the next phase of growth."

"Virtual Instruments is doing an incredible job helping Global 2000 companies lower the capital and operating expenses associated with their SANs and virtual infrastructure," said Thompson. "It's clear they play a critical part in improving the efficiency of every large IT organization by increasing overall asset utilization, improving IT productivity and reducing unnecessary infrastructure expenditures. I look forward to serving on the board of directors, providing guidance and support as the company evolves."

Before Symantec, Thompson held various senior executive positions in sales, marketing and software development at IBM Corporation, a career that spanned 28 years. In his last assignment at IBM, Thompson served as general manager of IBM Americas and as a member of the company's Worldwide Management Council.

In addition to Virtual Instruments and Symantec's board of directors, Thompson also serves on the board of directors for JovianDATA, Liquid Robotics, UPS and Seagate Technology. His leadership expands beyond Silicon Valley with Thompson serving on the national board of Teach for America, in addition to being inducted into the Junior Achievement Business Hall of Fame and recently being awarded the David Packard Medal of Achievement by TechAmerica. Thompson holds a bachelor's degree from Florida A&M University and a master's degree in management science from MIT's Sloan School of Management.

About Virtual Instruments

Virtual Instruments offers the award-winning NetWisdom and VirtualWisdom virtual infrastructure optimization solutions that provide deep monitoring and analysis of how the virtualized IT infrastructure and SAN affect business-critical application performance. Customers such as Barclay's Card Services, Kaiser Permanente and McKesson Corp. achieve significant cost savings in virtualization and SAN deployments by optimizing utilization, performance and availability of IT resources. Leading system and storage vendors including IBM, HP and EMC leverage Virtual Instruments to design and optimize SAN solutions for enterprise customers. The company was founded in June 2008 via a spin-out from Finisar Corp.; it has headquarters in Scotts Valley, Calif., and can be found online at http://www.virtualinstruments.com.

Contact Information: Media Contact: Melissa Lang Voce Communications on behalf of Virtual Instruments (330) 401-9220