SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Xambala, an innovative leader of acceleration solutions for network computing applications, continues to augment its executive team with the appointment of industry veteran Mike Knudsen as president and CEO. Knudsen, who brings more than 30 years of sales, marketing, engineering, operations and general management experience to Xambala, will be responsible for executing on the company's strategy and vision, as well as significantly growing the company.

"Mike is a resourceful leader who has extensive experience growing profitable organizations and successfully taking them into new markets," said Jim Smith, general partner with Mohr, Davidow Ventures. "Xambala's technology will serve as the catalyst for the content processing market. His credentials in the communications, networking and storage markets will help solidify the company as the industry leader for semantic processing solutions in this space." "Mike has a proven track record for growing multiple lines of business and shaping industry direction at a macro level," added Arjun Gupta, managing partner and founder of Telesoft Partners. "Mike has the unique mix of technical and operational leadership skills to establish Xambala as the leader in enabling applications-oriented networking and middleware-acceleration applications."

Founder Samba Murthy will continue as COO and will oversee the company's technical operations in both the U.S. and India. Knudsen joins Xambala after four years with QLogic Corporation of Orange County, where he served as the senior vice president of the network storage group, with line responsibility for engineering, development and marketing functions, as well as worldwide operations. In addition to growing annual sales to more than $600M and overseeing a staff of 600, Knudsen improved inventory management, lowered product costs and drove a key QLogic unit from a third place market share to first place position in less than three years. During his tenure, QLogic established itself as an innovative industry leader, introducing many technical 'firsts', and Knudsen's business unit set company records in sales, profit and margin improvement, while significantly increasing QLogic's portfolio of intellectual property.

"The dramatic benefits content-processing and acceleration bring to enterprise infrastructure are immediately attractive by both economic and performance measures. As businesses evolve to incorporate more and more of these applications, semantic processing of content will become absolutely essential," Knudsen said. "Xambala is addressing the need for OEMs to incorporate this functionality with a unique solution that will serve as the foundation for a wide range of applications. I am enthusiastic about the opportunity to be a part of an innovative organization that will bring change to the industry in many fundamental ways."

Prior to QLogic, Knudsen spearheaded Toshiba's entry into the broadband communications business as a vice president and general manager of the network products division. He turned a struggling division of the company into a profitable market share leader in just over two years against an entrenched incumbent. Knudsen also served as a vice president of sales and marketing for Digi International in Minnesota, a market leader in communication adapters for servers.

Knudsen holds a Master of Business Administration degree and a Bachelor of Science degree in mechanical engineering, both from the University of Wisconsin.

Xambala Inc.