Red Hat SummitRed Hat, Inc. (NASDAQ:RHAT), the market leader in Linux and open source solutions, today unveiled the Red Hat Linux Enterprise Edition product line. As part of its enterprise product strategy, Red Hat is working in conjunction with top software vendors to provide tested and integrated total Red Hat Linux solutions for business critical, high-volume, e-business and enterprise environments. Under the Red Hat Enterprise initiative, Red Hat recently announced the Red Hat Linux Enterprise Edition for Oracle 8i, Red Hat Linux Enterprise Edition for Computer Associates' systems and storage management solutions and Red Hat Linux Enterprise Edition for SAP R/3. Future Enterprise Editions will target other key application segments critical to enterprise computing and e-business, including directory services, messaging and ERP. The Red Hat Linux Enterprise Edition product line features enterprise-class support from Red Hat's worldwide support and solutions centers.
The Red Hat Linux Enterprise Edition product line is a collaborative effort between Red Hat and industry leading application providers designed to deliver optimized solutions, incorporating support and simplified configuration of well-known enterprise and Internet applications, to enterprise customers. Open source development enables Red Hat and its enterprise applications partners to work together at the deepest levels of the operating systems to develop a unified enterprise platform. Red Hat and its partners then work together to produce a tested, integrated and configured enterprise solution that assures maximum reliability, performance and availability.
Collaborative services and support that capitalize on the expertise of Red Hat and the enterprise application provider will facilitate the use and support of Red Hat Enterprise Editions in mission-critical enterprise environments.
In keeping with its commitment to open source and the open source development community, Red Hat will continue to freely share all modifications to the Linux OS with the open source community under public licenses.
"The Red Hat Linux Enterprise Edition product line focuses on the configuration, integration, tuning, and reliability issues that are critical to enterprise customers today," said Matthew Szulik, president and CEO of Red Hat, Inc. "We believe that the combination of Red Hat's technical leadership in the Linux development community and our partnerships with companies offering leading enterprise applications will enable Red Hat to deliver the best Linux platform for Linux customers."
"Our customers are increasingly choosing Red Hat Linux for its powerful performance, reliability and flexibility," said Ken Farber, senior vice president worldwide alliances, Computer Associates. "By working with Red Hat, the leading Linux brand, our joint customers benefit from combined efforts to deliver the most robust, powerful e-business solutions for the Linux platform."
"Red Hat's Enterprise edition offers customers the flexibility to build custom solution stacks on Red Hat Linux, the most popular Linux distribution, and Dell PowerEdge servers, the No. 2 PC server in the world," said Michael Lambert, senior vice president of Dell's Enterprise Systems Group. "As a leading provider of servers for the Internet infrastructure, we support strategic initiatives that allow our customers to customize and optimize their computing centers for the new Internet economy."
"Our studies show that although Linux is new to the majority of IT managers, they are open to using Linux-based solutions," said Dan Kusnetzky, program director, operating environments and serverware, IDC. "They are interested in the many strengths open source software offers, but have some concerns about applications, tools, middleware, serverware and support. The Red Hat Linux Enterprise Edition product line has the potential of reducing some of these concerns and is likely to accelerate the adoption of Linux."
Pricing and Availability
The Red Hat Linux Enterprise Edition will support solutions for e-business, production database applications, systems and storage management, enterprise application servers, directory services, messaging and ERP. Subsequent Red Hat Linux Enterprise Editions will be announced in coming months. The pricing of the packages will vary, depending on the application and the service and support packages chosen by customers. See www.redhat.com or call 800-454-5502, x500 for more information.
About Red Hat Services
Red Hat's on-site consulting sets a new standard for enterprise-level support for Linux-based operating systems. With more than 350 expert consultants, Red Hat and its partners offer Red Hat Linux consulting services, including: on-site consulting; strategy formation; planning; evaluation; classification and organization; training; implementation; recurring operations and audit. Red Hat Linux-based enterprise IT operations can choose anything from initial installation help up to full, ongoing outsourced management of their complete Linux-based information management operation. Red Hat offers all the services needed to successfully install, integrate, manage and support open source solutions in today's rapidly growing enterprises. In recent months, Red Hat has greatly expanded its support offerings, including international training and certification for Red Hat Linux. In addition, Red Hat announced recently that enterprises such as Burlington Coat Factory Warehouse Corporation, Autozone and Amerada Hess have purchased support services from Red Hat for their Linux deployment.
Open Source Momentum
International Data Corp. (IDC) research states that Linux paid shipments grew faster than any other server operating system over the past two years. IDC preliminary figures for 1999 show Linux shipments hold 24.6 percent of the server operating system market, up from 15.8 in 1998.
According to research firm NetCraft, Inc. (www.netcraft.com), 29 percent of all public Web servers run on Linux, making Linux the most popular operating system for public Web sites. Finally, IDC predicts that by 2002, there will be more than 55 million handheld and notebook-style information appliance devices and that by 2005, shipments of these appliances will exceed shipments of PCs.
Red Hat's numerous alliances with industry leaders and the demand for Linux-based applications has created open source support from many of the industry's leading software and hardware manufacturers, including Compaq, Computer Associates, Corel, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intel, Netscape, Novell, Oracle and SAP.
- 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.
