Tropos Networks promotes Ayers to CEO

SUNNYVALE, CA – January 8, 2008 – Tropos® Networks, the market leader in metro-scale broadband wireless mesh networks, today announced the appointment of veteran sales executive Tom Ayers as President and CEO to head the company as it expands its leadership in municipal and industrial enterprise markets.  Mr. Ayers will succeed Ron Sege who will continue to serve as Advisor to the company.

On behalf of Tropos’ Board of Directors, Chairman Dave Hanna said, “I want to take this opportunity to thank Ron for his vision, evangelism and tireless commitment to Tropos and the whole metro Wi-Fi industry.  “He built a great foundation here at Tropos and I look forward to working with him in his future endeavors.”

During Sege’s four year tenure, he helped create the metro Wi-Fi market and drove the company’s significant customer and partner growth, product direction and team development, to achieve market and technology leadership.  During the past six months alone, Tropos has experienced a 40% growth in the number of users on networks monitored by the company. 

“We are excited to have Tom Ayers, with his great and varied sales track record, on board to lead the next phase of Tropos’ growth,” said Bill Gurley, General Partner of Benchmark Capital and member of the Board.  “I wish to add my thanks to Ron for his exemplary leadership at Tropos as well as his key role in building the company and the metro Wi-Fi industry.  We wish Ron well and welcome Tom to the team.”

Mr. Ayers is a 30-year industry veteran who was most recently the Senior Vice President of Field Operations at Blue Coat Systems.  While at Blue Coat, he helped lead the company through a significant market transition which resulted in thousands of new customers, number one market share and company profitability. Prior to Blue Coat, he led sales organizations for the McAfee Security division of Network Associates.  Before that, he improved revenue growth and profitability at Sequent Computer Systems. He also served as Vice President of Sales for Amdahl’s worldwide professional services and multi-vendor maintenance organizations, growing the business more than fourfold.

“Tom has a tremendous track record in managing both large and small companies through market transitions to build profitable, high growth businesses,” added Hanna. 

About Tropos Networks, Inc.

Tropos® Networks is the market leader in delivering metro-scale wireless IP mesh networks. The company’s systems have been selected to unwire more major league cities than all competitors combined and are installed in 30 countries. The patented Tropos MetroMesh™ architecture delivers the ultimate scalability, high capacity at low cost and great user experience demanded by service providers, municipalities and network users. Tropos Networks’ unique expertise includes high-performance mesh software development, mesh RF engineering, metro-scale network planning, deployment and optimization, and navigating the municipal approval process. Tropos Networks is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. For more information, please visit www.tropos.com [1], call 408-331-6800 or write to info@tropos.com [2].

Tropos and PWRP are registered trademarks of Tropos Networks, Inc. Tropos Networks, MetroMesh, AMCE, TMCX, SABRE, CMDP and Metro-Scale Mesh Networking Defined are trademarks of Tropos Networks, Inc. All other brand or product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holder(s).