SAP Venture Fund Makes Equity Investment in Red Hat, Inc.

Investment Accelerates Linux Success and the Open Source Movement

WALLDORF - —

SAP AG (NYSE ADR: SAP), the world's leading provider of enterprise business software solutions, today announced an equity investment by the SAP Venture Fund in Red Hat, Inc. , the leading commercial-grade supplier of the Linux operating system. Linux is a stable, reliable and viable operating system developed according to the Open Source model that has matured to the point where it is ready to run mission-critical business applications.

"The SAP Venture Fund is designed to foster innovative technology developments that will have significant impact and benefits for SAP customers," said Howard Lau, executive vice president of the SAP Venture Fund. "Linux is becoming a significant force in the industry. We expect it to emerge as an attractive platform for enterprise computing, and Red Hat is a leading Linux distributor."

"Increasingly enterprise customers are looking for a Linux platform on which to run their enterprise resource planning applications," said Robert F. Young, co-founder and CEO of Red Hat Software. "We are pleased that SAP has selected Red Hat to support SAP and its customers." More than 10 million users currently run the Linux operating system. Linux currently runs on Intel X86, Compaq Alpha and Sun SPARC processors and will soon run on PowerPC and HP PA-RISC systems.

About SAP Venture Fund
The purpose of the SAP Venture Fund is to provide funding to companies with promising technologies that are expected to further the state of the art for enterprise computing. The funding is by definition a venture investment and does not represent a commitment of further business development initiatives by SAP.

About SAP
SAP, the world's largest enterprise software company, provides companies of all sizes with business solutions that deliver A Better Return on InformationSM. SAP products and services integrate an organization from financials and human resources to manufacturing and sales and distribution. This integration enables companies to optimize supply chains, strengthen customer relationships, and make more accurate management decisions. Founded in 1972, SAP today leverages a global network of people, processes and products to assure customer success. SAP is listed on several exchanges including the Frankfurt stock exchange and NYSE under the symbol SAP. The SAP World Wide Web site can be found at www.sap.com.

SAP, A Better Return on Information and all SAP product and service names herein are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP AG. Other product and company names herein may be trademarks of their respective owners. © Copyright 1999, SAP AG

For More Information:
Jennifer Aprile, Dan Ring or Paul Bugala
Schwartz Communications for Red Hat
Phone: (781) 684-0770
redhat@schwartz-pr.com
Howard Lau, SAP America, Inc., howard.lau@sap-ag.de
Harald Kuck, SAP AG, harald.kuck@sap-ag.de

About Red Hat, Inc.

Red Hat, the world's leading open source and Linux provider, is headquartered in Raleigh, NC with satellite offices spanning the globe. The most trusted name in open source, CIOs and other senior-level IT executives have ranked Red Hat as the industry's most valued vendor for two consecutive years 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 operating system software along with middleware, applications and management solutions. 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 focus on security and ease of management. Learn more: http://www.redhat.com

Common with UNIX footnote

LINUX is a trademark of Linus Torvalds. Red Hat is a registered trademark of Red Hat, Inc. UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group. All other names and trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

  • 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.



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