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Staktek Holdings Realigns Executive and Technical Infrastructure to Pursue Aggressive Product and Market Growth

Posted on: Wednesday, 20 July 2005, 09:00 CDT

Technology Innovator Adds CTO Office, Reorganizes Operational Team and Adds Industry-Leading Sales and Technical Leaders to Market IP for Enterprise and Consumer Applications

Staktek Holdings, Inc. (Nasdaq:STAK), a world-leading provider of intellectual property and services for the next generation of 3D high-speed and high-capacity thermal management systems, announced it has realigned its management infrastructure in preparation for increased activity to drive product and market growth in enterprise and consumer device markets.

Key organizational changes include the creation of two market-oriented business units, the creation of the position of chief technology officer (CTO), and the addition of a new vice president of sales, a business unit general manager and two senior-level engineering leaders.

These critical changes to Staktek's management team and infrastructure mark the organization's first substantial step toward expanding its product and market reach beyond the enterprise memory stacking market to include portable consumer-level applications that can benefit from advanced, high-capacity system solutions.

"The creation of separate, focused business units and the expansion of R&D will position Staktek to deliver unique, IP-based innovations that can enhance and even transform a wider range of devices for our traditional enterprise customers, as well as new customers for the emerging portable device consumer markets," said Wayne Lieberman, president of Staktek. "Driving this new corporate strategy requires a streamlined structure that maximizes the talents of a top-notch team. As such, we have recruited some of the top consumer technology implementers and evangelists in the industry to join us in developing and delivering more solutions for today's challenges and tomorrow's vision."

James Cady, a pioneer in the memory stacking business who is named on more than 30 of the company's patents and pending patent applications, will assume the role of acting CTO in addition to his current role as chief executive officer (CEO).

"Staktek has a successful history of using our thermal, electrical and process innovations to develop stacked enterprise memory solutions that have led the market for more than a decade," said Cady. "By expanding our R&D efforts to include solutions for portable consumer electronics, such as MP3 players, camcorders and digital cameras, we'll be able to extend our customer base, intellectual property portfolio and technology offerings more quickly to create a future of new successes."

Leland Szewerenko joins Staktek as a distinguished member of the technical staff, responsible for managing and overseeing consumer device product development for the Emerging Markets Business Unit. Szewerenko brings more than 30 years of technical hardware and systems experience. He was most recently with Vocollect, a supplier of wearable voice recognition systems. Prior to his tenure at Vocollect, Szewerenko spent eight years as a senior systems architect with Texas Instruments, where he invented, designed and co-designed multiple DSP development environment technologies.

Joseph Villani, Jr. joins Staktek as a senior member of the technical staff in the Emerging Markets Business Unit, with more than 15 years of engineering, product development and project management experience. Villani previously served in multiple engineering, product and project management roles with Texas Instruments.

Todd Rumaner joins Staktek as vice president of worldwide sales, reporting to the president. Most recently, Rumaner held senior management roles at ArcSoft, Inc., a leading developer and provider of multimedia software and firmware solutions for personal computer, mobile device and consumer electronics manufacturers. Serving as senior vice president, chief operating officer and vice president of marketing and sales for ArcSoft, he secured key accounts with companies such as Nikon, Nokia, Panasonic and Polaroid.

Damian Cook joins Staktek in the new role of general manager of the Enterprise Business Unit. Cook joins Staktek after six years with Dell, Inc., serving most recently as Director of Engineering for Dell's PowerEdge(TM) Server Products. He also served as Director of Engineering for both the PowerConnect(TM) Networking Products and the PowerVault(TM) Storage Systems. His prior hardware engineering leadership at Compaq resulted in the introduction of the company's early enterprise server lines.

Staktek Holdings will highlight these aspects of the new corporate growth strategy in its second-quarter earnings conference call scheduled for August 10, 2005 at 9:00 a.m. Eastern. For dial-in information or to access the Web cast, please visit the Investor Relations section of the company's Web site at http://www.staktek.com.

More information about Staktek and its high-capacity memory solutions is available online at http://www.staktek.com.

About Staktek Holdings:

Staktek is a world-leading provider of intellectual property and services for the next generation of 3D high-speed and high-capacity thermal management systems. Staktek's Performance, Value and High Performance Stakpak(R) memory solutions increase operational performance by doubling, tripling or quadrupling the amount of memory in the same physical footprint as required by standard packaging technology. With an IP portfolio of more than 140 patents and patent applications pending, the company offers flexibility for customers, including outsourced manufacturing, technology licensing and custom engineering. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, Staktek operates two world-class manufacturing locations in Austin and Reynosa, Mexico.

Cautionary Language

This press release contains forward-looking statements that include, but are not limited to, expanding Staktek's product and market reach; positioning Staktek to deliver unique, IP-based innovations that can enhance and transform a wide range of devices for existing customers as well as new customers; and extending our customer base, intellectual property portfolio and technology offerings. Our forward-looking statements are based on our current expectations, estimates and assumptions and are subject to many risks, uncertainties and unknown future events that could cause actual results to differ materially. Risks and uncertainties that may cause future results to differ include, but are not limited to, risks related to qualifying our current or future products in our current and targeted customers' future products; the risks associated with expanding into new markets without past experience in those markets; the risk that we are unable to protect our intellectual property rights; the risk that we are unable to productize the intellectual property that we develop; the risk of hiring several key employees in a short period of time; the risk that a competitor or significant customer develops or adopts an alternative solution or competing product; the risk that demand for our solutions is lower than expected; the risk that our new technologies, such as our second-generation DDR-II solutions, are not completed, tested or accepted in a timely fashion; the risks associated with intellectual property litigation or other litigation; the risk that we incur problems in our U.S. or Mexican manufacturing processes or facilities or that we are unable to maintain or improve our manufacturing capacity and turnaround times; risks associated with competing with larger companies and companies with market share where we are targeting expansion; and the risks associated with our dependence on a few key personnel to manage our business effectively.

For a discussion of these and other factors that could impact our financial results and cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements, please refer to our recent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and in particular, our Form 10-K filed on March 9, 2005. The foregoing information concerning our business outlook represents our outlook as of the date of this news release, and we undertake no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new developments or otherwise.

Staktek is a trademark of Staktek Group LP. All other products names noted herein may be trademarks of their respective holders.

Source: Business Wire

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