Press Release: February 13, 2001

WR Hambrecht + Co Initiates Coverage of CIENA (CIEN) with a Buy Rating and a Price Target of $100

San Francisco, CA, February 13, 2001—WR Hambrecht + Co today initiated research coverage on CIENA Corporation (CIEN) with a Buy rating and a price target of $100. WR Hambrecht’s Communications Infrastructure analyst Tim Savageaux cites CIENA’s strong customer base, best of breed products, and reasonable valuation as key reasons for the recommendations. WR Hambrecht + Co offers all its research reports free and real-time at www.wrhambrecht.com.

“We believe shares of CIENA represent the most attractive investment exposure in the optical networking arena. This is based on the Company’s unique mix of the best aspects of emerging pure-plays and established vendors, including: 1) size - having eclipsed a $1 billion annualized run rate; 2) growth - because we project revenues to increase 80 percent in FY2001; and 3) profitability - as CIENA has been solidly profitable, with operating margins of 20 percent in Q4:00,” Savageaux said.

Savageaux projects CIENA’s FY2001 revenue at $1.5 billion and EPS of $0.71 and FY2002 revenues of $2.4 billion and EPS of $1.10, an increase from FY2000 revenues of $858 million and EPS of $0.32.

CIENA offers optical transport and intelligent optical switching systems that enable service providers to provision, manage, and deliver high-bandwidth services to their customers.