FREMONT, Calif. -- net.com (NYSE:NWK) , a global supplier of adaptive broadband technologies, announced today that it has hired Steven W. Holmes as vice president of sales for North American enterprise. Holmes will bring his considerable enterprise and channel management background to bear as he leads and expands an experienced team of sales professionals to focus on the company's opportunities with its SHOUT VoIP migration appliance. net.com's SHOUT is targeted at global enterprises migrating their telephone systems to use the Internet protocol (IP), and was selected last fall by Microsoft for use in its corporate network.

Holmes has demonstrated his success as a sales executive at Edify Corporation, a speech technology company, Altitude Software, a provider of contact center management, and Rockwell Electronic Commerce. He has overseen channel sales programs and established distribution partnerships with such organizations as Verizon, Unisys, Fujitsu, and MCI Worldcom. He has been responsible for direct sales to Fortune 500 enterprise customers such as Dell, Walmart, Loews and the Hilton Group.

While at Rockwell Electronic Commerce, he engineered a global distribution contract with Ericsson that resulted in the placement of approximately $30 million in systems. He also succeeded in restructuring North American sales operations to focus on specific verticals to transform the sales culture, and signed contracts with organizations such as American Airlines, Virgin Atlantic, Continental Airlines, Merrill Lynch, Banc One, Chase, Wells Fargo, GEICO, AAA, Bankers Trust, Airtouch/Vodaphone, Starbucks, Bellsouth/GTE, Southern California Edison and Healthnet.

Holmes' extensive career includes various roles, primarily in sales, with Aspect Telecommunications, Mitel Telecom, Ferranti GTE, ITT Business Systems, and IBM (UK) Ltd.

Holmes will report to Gary Lau, senior vice president of worldwide sales and service for net.com. Lau said, "We are excited to strengthen our sales organization to focus even greater attention on our opportunity with our SHOUT platform for the Global 500. Steve has the extensive experience, contacts and skills we require to achieve success in this role, and we anticipate dynamic results."

Joining Holmes at net.com is Matthew Krueger, who will lead Channel Development.

Network Equipment Technologies Inc. (net.com)