Starnet Offers Its Customers Leading Secure Content Management Solutions From Tumbleweed

Starnet Data Design, Inc. Joins Tumbleweed Channel Alliance Program

WESTLAKE VILLAGE, Calif. - (BUSINESS WIRE) - October 10, 2001 - Starnet Data Design, Inc., a leading value-add network integration firm headquartered in Southern California, announced today that it is now a member of the Tumbleweed Channel Alliance Program. Tumbleweed® Communications Corp. (Nasdaq:TMWD - news) is a leading provider of secure content management solutions for enabling the business Internet. As a member of the Tumbleweed Channel Alliance Program, Starnet will offer its customers products from Tumbleweed's wide range of secure content management solutions.

"We focus on taking a comprehensive view of our customers' long term IT objectives in order to secure and protect their network environments and help meet all of their network integration needs," said Steve Marks, President of Starnet Data Design, Inc. "As specialists in information security, we believe that Tumbleweed offers the next generation of internet security solutions that should be a core component of a company's security architecture. Tumbleweed solutions provide companies with a centralized security and policy framework to manage all of the critical information exchanged with their customers, partners and suppliers over the Internet."

We're pleased that Starnet has joined our Channel Alliance Program," said Robert Krauss, Vice President, Channel Development at Tumbleweed. "Starnet is a leader in providing internet security solutions to its corporate customers and has built a number of strategic technology partnerships with both customers and vendors throughout North America. We look forward to working with them to offer their customers Tumbleweed solutions."

Starnet performs a variety of network integration services, including internet security, virtual private networking, internet acceleration, Voice over IP and Layers 2-7 switching. Starnet also offers a range of Value-Added services such as StarWATCH, remote network monitoring service, StarRESPONSE a comprehensive network maintenance service, and StarVIEW, a network analysis service. As a Tumbleweed Channel Alliance partner, Starnet will offer customers the full range of Tumbleweed secure content management products. Using Tumbleweed solutions, Starnet customers can manage all of their security applications from a single, centralized gateway, protect their internal networks, and manage and secure web content and email communications. Tumbleweed solutions are application-independent and can integrate easily with existing infrastructure to enable customers to consolidate and universally apply two-way security policies across their entire enterprise.

About Starnet Data Design, Inc.
Starnet Data Design is a value-add network integration firm, specializing in building technology partnerships with their customers and vendors. Starnet offers a variety of IT networking services to customers, and specialize in internet security, through which they offer firewall, Internet security, intrusion detection and VPNs. Starnet Data Design is an authorized Microsoft, IBM, Cisco and NetScreen Partner. Clients include Digital Insight, Guitar Center and Wedbush Morgan Securities.

Note: The above represents a Tumbleweed Partner Release

About Tumbleweed
Tumbleweed is a leading provider of solutions for managing secure communication and collaboration to enable the business Internet. Tumbleweed's robust policy-based framework empowers organizations to safely share and protect critical information, increase customer loyalty and privacy and dramatically reduce costs. Tumbleweed is trusted by 1,000 blue-chip customers including American Express, JP Morgan Chase & Co., Chevron, Datek Online, the European Union's Joint Research Council, US Food and Drug Administration, John Deere, Merrill Lynch, Nike, Northern Trust, NTT, Salomon Smith Barney, Travelers, United Parcel Service, and seven of the world's largest postal services. Tumbleweed Communications was founded in 1993 and is headquartered in Redwood City, CA with offices around the world.

Except for the historical information contained herein, the matters discussed in this press release may constitute forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected, particularly with respect to the security features of Tumbleweed's products and the activities of any third party. In some cases, forward-looking statements can be identified by terminology such as "may," "will," "should," "potential," "continue," "expects," "anticipates," "intends," "plans," "believes," "estimates," and similar expressions. For further cautions about the risks of investing in Tumbleweed, we refer you to the documents Tumbleweed files from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission, particularly Tumbleweed's Form 10-K filed March 30, 2001 and Form 10-Q filed November 13, 2001. Tumbleweed assumes no obligation to update information contained in this press release.