Berkeley, CA, January 20, 2006 --- Aspera, Inc, a rapidly growing start-up specializing in bulk data transfer solutions, and Netmarks, Inc., a leading network solution provider in Japan, have established a premier partnership in which Netmarks will be a strategic distributor of Aspera products in Asia. Netmarks will immediately begin selling Aspera products through a variety of channels, including Netmarks’ direct sales channel, reseller channel, and Asian distribution channel.

Aspera’s unique bulk data transfer technology provides perfect throughput independent of the conditions of the network (packet loss and latency), guaranteed delivery time, and extraordinary control over individual transfer rates and bandwidth sharing. Transfers are secure over both public and private networks. Aspera’s transfer products are simple, cross-platform software applications accommodating a wide variety of workflows. They are specifically designed for the emerging markets of digital media delivery and network file transfer in both business-to-business and business-to-consumer applications.

Depending on available bandwidth and the conditions of the network, Aspera’s customers achieve significant to amazing improvement in throughput over FTP and HTTP, with the most dramatic improvement for transfers over long distance networks, difficult networks (such as unreliable international and satellite links), and high bandwidths links. For instance, Aspera’s high bandwidth customers realize 30 times faster file transfer times on intercontinental DS-3 links and have shown as much as 185 times improvement on long distance gigabit links. Aspera’s customers realize ten times or better improvement in transfer times from the US to India and China, even over low bandwidth links (1.5 Mbps).

With headquarters in Tokyo and offices in major cities throughout Japan, as well as overseas operations in China, Singapore, Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, and distributors in Hong Kong, Korea and Singapore, Netmarks is well positioned to help Aspera extend its products into Asia. "Over the past two years, we have focused on incrementally solving the large data delivery problems crossing many industries, and are fortunate to be earning standardization by several major Hollywood studios, broadcasters, and post-production companies, " says Michelle Munson, Aspera co-founder and President.

Aspera’s customers also include cable, satellite, and on-demand media networks; defense contractors; divisions of US military intelligence and space research; pharmaceutical, financial service, and manufacturing companies; and several global outsourcing companies. "Although in varied industries, these clients have common needs to move large data throughout national and international networks, and we are grateful that they rely on our products daily to perform essential transfers. With their help, we will continue striving toward a next-generation data transfer platform that is perfectly bandwidth-efficient, manageable, and secure, " says Munson.

"Netmarks shares our technology focus and conscientious, customer-oriented approach, and will be very helpful in developing transfer solutions that serve customers’ needs in Asia, in both business-to-business and business-to-consumer transfer applications. We look forward to a long and productive collaboration with them," says Aspera co-founder Serban Simu.

Netmarks has run several trials of Aspera software compared to FTP over a network with an effective bandwidth of 55Mbps. Using this network, FTP transfers of a 1-gigabyte file from California to Tokyo took 83min and 29 sec, with 4% bandwidth utilization. Using Aspera Scp, the same 1-gigabyte file was transferred in 2min and 54sec, a 30 times improvement, and with 97% bandwidth utilization. "Our customers’ wide area data access and transfer needs can be categorized into those that require frequent access of the same file, and those that involve bulk data transfer," says Yuichi Arai, Vice President of Netmarks Server Storage Products Division." Aspera has the best solution for bulk data transfer with the flexibility to meet the transfer needs of our storage customers, dramatically improve the file transfer efficiency for our enterprise customers, and meet the emerging need for media content distribution to consumers. We are excited about bringing Aspera’s innovative products to our customers in the Asia Pacific region."

About Netmarks

Netmarks Inc. was established in 1997 to provide network infrastructure services to customers in Japan and other countries in Asia using the best-of-breed technologies. Netmarks’ flexibility and pursuit of excellence has allowed it to adopt advanced technology developed worldwide, including IP LAN network systems, wireless systems, security systems, and WAN network and server / storage applications. Utilizing these products and technologies, Netmarks offers customers the best-suited solutions, from consultation services, through system design and construction, to maintenance and remote monitoring services. For more information about Netmarks, please refer to www.netmarks.co.jp