Red Hat Delivers Incomparable Value to Kingfisher for its Leading DIY Stores in Continental Europe

Kingfisher, Europe's leading home improvement retail group and the third largest in the world, switches to Red Hat Enterprise Linux for its 240 Castorama and Brico-Dépôt stores.

RALEIGH, N.C -

Red Hat (NYSE: RHT), the world's leading provider of open source solutions, today announced that the Kingfisher Group, Europe's leading home improvement retail group and the third largest in the world, is migrating to Red Hat Enterprise Linux with Oracle databases for all 240 of its Castorama and Brico Dépôt stores because of Red Hat's superior stability, service and support. Red Hat has enabled the company to reduce the number of servers it requires by half and make a return on its investment in just eight months. At the same time, Kingfisher is benefiting from a ten-fold increase in performance.

Due to the mass and complexity of information relating to the logistics and commercial activity handled in each store, system reliability and availability are essential prerequisites for the Kingfisher Group's IT system.

Since 1997, Castorama and Brico Dépôt stores have been running an IT system comprised of two servers. One of the servers was a Digital UNIX Alpha server supporting production tools and commercial applications, as well as an Oracle v7 database and FORMS application. The second was an NT server for the infrastructure, covering the network, domains, printing and file server. When Kingfisher learned that support would soon be ending for both the UNIX and NT servers, it was faced with the challenge of renewing a vast IT architecture for its Castorama and Brico Dépôt stores.

Kingfisher made the strategic choice to use open source solutions because the open source platform's maturity and reliability allowed the Group to plan a migration with full confidence. When selecting a Linux distribution, the choice was simple for Kingfisher. Stability and support were of prime importance, and the Group decided Red Hat Enterprise Linux was the only option.

"Overall most of the open source distributions contained the features we needed, including infrastructure services," said Bernard Grulois, Architecture and Infrastructure Manager at Kingfisher IT Services, the Group's worldwide IT organization. "But only Red Hat offered a business-ready Linux distribution with the level of service, guarantee and support that we required for the mission-critical information system that is needed for the smooth operation of Kingfisher's Continental Europe DIY stores."

The architecture was designed to include production tools and the database comprised of Oracle AS10G with an Oracle 9i database and WEBFORMS for the technical building blocks (functional iso-perimeter). Every outlet in France, Italy, Spain, Poland and Russia is now equipped with Red Hat Enterprise Linux running on an HP ProLiant ML 370 G4 server with 8Gb memory, Intel Dual-Core processors and 5X140 Go disk in RAID 1.

After a three-month test phase in Spain, the servers were deployed in French, Italian, Polish and Russian stores.

In Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Kingfisher IT Services found a solution that allowed all of Castorama and Brico Dépôt's requirements to be satisfied with a single server, and the ability to run both production tools and infrastructure services on the same box. This has translated into large cost-savings and even faster deployments and updates.

"We are extremely satisfied with our choice," said Grulois. "We have achieved a return on our investment in less than eight months and we continue to benefit from the advantages Red Hat Enterprise Linux offers, in terms of maintenance, cost savings and high security. In addition, we have seen an impressive improvement in performance. We have increased the speed of our system ten times and also improved the quality of overall service. As for delivery at the user level, it is excellent."

"The success of the Kingfisher Group and its astonishing results, not only in terms of the return on investment, but also in improved performance, clearly demonstrates the many benefits of Red Hat and open source solutions," said Tim Yeaton, Senior Vice President of Enterprise Solutions at Red Hat. "We are pleased that Kingfisher has unlocked the value of our support and services, and we look forward to continuing our work with them."

To learn more about Red Hat solutions and to read the entire case study on Kingfisher's implementation of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, please visit http://www.redhat.com.

About Red Hat, Inc.

Red Hat, the world's leading open source solutions provider, is headquartered in Raleigh, NC with satellite offices spanning the globe. CIOs have ranked Red Hat the most valuable software vendor for three years running in the CIO Insight Magazine Vendor Value study. Red Hat is leading Linux and open source solutions into the mainstream by making high-quality, low-cost technology accessible. Red Hat provides an operating system platform, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, along with applications, management, and middleware solutions, including JBoss Enterprise Middleware Suite. Red Hat is accelerating the shift to service-oriented architectures and enabling the next generation of web-enabled applications running on a low-cost, secure open source platform. Red Hat also offers support, training and consulting services to its customers worldwide and through top-tier partnerships. Red Hat's open source strategy offers customers a long term plan for building infrastructures that are based on and leverage open source technologies with a focus on security and ease of management. Learn more: http://www.redhat.com

Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements contained in this press release may constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements provide current expectations of future events based on certain assumptions and include any statement that does not directly relate to any historical or current fact. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors, including: risks related to the integration of acquisitions; the ability of the Company to effectively compete; the inability to adequately protect Company intellectual property and the potential for infringement or breach of license claims of or relating to third party intellectual property; risks related to data and information security vulnerabilities; ineffective management of, and control over, the Company's growth and international operations; adverse results in litigation; the dependence on key personnel as well as other factors contained in our most recent Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q (copies of which may be accessed through the Securities and Exchange Commission's website at http://www.sec.gov), including those found therein under the captions "Risk Factors" and "Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations". In addition, the forward-looking statements included in this press release represent the Company's views as of the date of this press release and these views could change. However, while the Company may elect to update these forward-looking statements at some point in the future, the Company specifically disclaims any obligation to do so. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing the Company's views as of any date subsequent to the date of the press release.

LINUX is a trademark of Linus Torvalds. RED HAT and JBOSS are registered trademarks of Red Hat, Inc. and its subsidiaries in the US and other countries.

  • About Red Hat
  • Red Hat is the world’s leading provider of open source software solutions, using a community-powered approach to reliable and high-performing cloud, Linux, middleware, storage and virtualization technologies. Red Hat also offers award-winning support, training, and consulting services. As the connective hub in a global network of enterprises, partners, and open source communities, Red Hat helps create relevant, innovative technologies that liberate resources for growth and prepare customers for the future of IT. Learn more at http://www.redhat.com.



  • Forward-Looking Statements
  • Certain statements contained in this press release may constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements provide current expectations of future events based on certain assumptions and include any statement that does not directly relate to any historical or current fact. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors, including: risks related to delays or reductions in information technology spending; the effects of industry consolidation; the ability of the Company to compete effectively; the integration of acquisitions and the ability to market successfully acquired technologies and products; uncertainty and adverse results in litigation and related settlements; the inability to adequately protect Company intellectual property and the potential for infringement or breach of license claims of or relating to third party intellectual property; the ability to deliver and stimulate demand for new products and technological innovations on a timely basis; risks related to data and information security vulnerabilities; ineffective management of, and control over, the Company’s growth and international operations; fluctuations in exchange rates; and changes in and a dependence on key personnel, as well as other factors contained in our most recent Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q (copies of which may be accessed through the Securities and Exchange Commission’s website at http://www.sec.gov), including those found therein under the captions "Risk Factors" and "Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations". In addition to these factors, actual future performance, outcomes, and results may differ materially because of more general factors including (without limitation) general industry and market conditions and growth rates, economic and political conditions, governmental and public policy changes and the impact of natural disasters such as earthquakes and floods. The forward-looking statements included in this press release represent the Company’s views as of the date of this press release and these views could change. However, while the Company may elect to update these forward-looking statements at some point in the future, the Company specifically disclaims any obligation to do so. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing the Company’s views as of any date subsequent to the date of this press release.