for immediate release

SBE and NComm team to deliver industry’s finest WAN solutions designed to reduce time to market by 6-12 months

San Ramon, CA, January 19, 2004 -- SBE Inc. (NASDAQ: SBEI), a leading supplier of high performance OEM communications solutions, and NComm, Inc., a provider of advanced WAN source code and software, today announced that they are teaming up to provide comprehensive WAN solutions coupling high-performance WAN interfaces with intelligent top-level software drivers. Bringing together this unprecedented duo results in significant cost savings for OEMs and speeds up time-to-market by 6-12 months.

Portable to any operating system, NComm's Trunk Management Software (TMS) performs all aspects of T1/E1, T3/E3, SONET/SDH, and ISDN support, including alarming, performance monitoring and signaling. Alarming, the detection and notification of problems/defects on the line, performance monitoring, the accumulation of information on line health, and signaling, the process of passing calls via signaling bits, are critical components in WAN device functionality as well as standard compliance. The TMS code is application middleware, which provides high-level algorithmic processing of the raw data to and from the low-level driver. Much more than typical drivers that are framer (hardware) specific, TMS is architected to be framer independent and layered on top of the device driver. NComm's well-defined driver application programmer interfaces (APIs) are designed for quick and simple integration to upper level applications, such as call processing, routing, and SNMP handling.

"Bundling NComm's pre-tested and verified TMS modules with SBE's robust and proven line of WAN interfaces results in a risk-free development program as well as time and cost-effective product deployment for our mutual customers," stated William B. Heye, Jr. president and CEO of SBE. "Hardware vendors typically provide ‘bare-bones' drivers with their boards, thus leaving the burden of developing code for alarming, signaling, and maintenance on OEM customers. The burden is now lifted with SBE and NComm's joint solution of intelligent WAN. The time and money that our customers were once spending on making vendor drivers application-ready can be now be redirected to their own core competencies," continued Heye.

NComm's TMS module is available with SBE's full line of T1/E1 and T3/E3 WAN adapters. Offering PCI, PMC, and PTMC form factors, SBE's WAN boards provide single, dual or quad port options as well as clear channel and channelized versions. H.100/H.110 support is also available.

"Customer demands and expectations for complete hardware and software WAN solutions, that are fully functional out-of-the-box, continue to grow in today's market. Joining our wide range of fully functional, standard compliant WAN source code with SBE's highly-reliable and innovative portfolio of WAN interfaces allows us to deliver an advanced level of functionality and convenience to OEM customers," commented Bill Matern, President and Founder of NComm. "We are very pleased to have the opportunity to complement our TMS module with SBE's impressive line of T1/E1 and T3/E3 WAN cards."

About NComm
NComm provides network equipment vendors with proven, standards-compliant Wide Area Networking (WAN) source code, software, and custom engineering. Its TMS ® trunk management suite enables faster time-to-market for network systems by reducing the development time for WAN interfaces from months to hours. The suite includes the turnkey software and source code to embed into WAN equipment, which performs all the framer, alarming, performance monitoring, line testing, and signaling functions that all WAN devices or products must have to operate. NComm, privately held and based in Salem, New Hampshire, has customers ranging from start-ups to well-established communications companies such as 3Com (NasdaqNM:COMS), ADC (NasdaqNM:ADCT), Nortel (NYSE:NT), and Sonus (NasdaqNM:SONS). For more information, please visit the NComm website at www.ncomm.com .

About SBE
SBE architects and provides network communications solutions for an extensive range of applied computing applications. SBE offers a robust portfolio of standards-based WAN, LAN, Storage network interface cards (NICs) as well as communications controllers designed to enable optimal performance and rapid deployment across a full spectrum of next generation networking systems. Based in San Ramon, California, SBE is a publicly traded company (NASDAQ: SBEI) with products sold worldwide through direct sales, OEMs and system integration partners. For additional information, please visit www.sbei.com.

For more information, contact:
SBE, Inc.
Elaine Chin, (925) 355-7604
ychin@sbei.com

This news release contains certain forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties, including statements about new product features, market opportunity for new products, and the demand for services that may be offered by SBE's customers. Such statements are only predictions and the company's actual results may differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements. Factors that may cause such differences include, but are not limited to risks related to rapidly changing product requirements, the introduction of new products, market acceptance of the Company' products, and reliance on strategic partners. These factors and others are more fully discussed in the documents SBE files with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including SBE's Annual Report on Form 10-K.

SBE and the SBE logo are registered trademarks of SBE, Inc. All other brand or product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.

01/18/04 YLC