The World’s Largest Technology Company Forms Alliance with
Market-leading Provider of Linux Software and Expertise
RESEARCH TRIANGLE, NC, February 18, 1999, Red Hat® Software,
Inc. announced today that it has entered an alliance with IBM to
deliver, via IBM Business Partners, high-performance IBM systems
running Official Red Hat Linux.
IBM and Red Hat will work collaboratively to optimize IBM
personal system hardware for running Red Hat Linux, providing
customers with powerful and reliable enterprise and e-business
solutions on the Red Hat Linux platform. Both companies will work
together to provide enterprise-level technical support and will
conduct joint marketing to enterprise customers. As a first
demonstration of high performing e-business solutions based on Red
Hat Linux and IBM hardware, several high traffic Red Hat web sites
will be powered by the award winning Netfinity line of servers.
Under the agreement, a development lab will be established to
maximize performance, reliability, and security for Red Hat Linux
on IBM server and client systems, including Netfinity servers, PC
300 Commercial Desktops, IntelliStations, and ThinkPads. In
addition to contributing developer expertise, Red Hat will also
perform hardware certification testing and provide dedicated
customer training.
“IBM has long been the leader in powerful, reliable computing
solutions,” said Bob Young, CEO, Red Hat Software. “This is an
important milestone in the rapidly growing acceptance of
Linux.”
More than 10 million users currently run the Linux operating
system. According to IDC Research, Linux was the fastest-growing
server operating environment in 1998, capturing more than 17
percent of all server operating system shipments. A new survey in
Linuxworld showed that 74 percent of those polled cite Red Hat as
the most recognized Linux vendor.
“Our customers are asking for Linux solutions,” said Bill
McCracken, general manager of marketing and strategy, IBM Personal
Systems Group. “The Red Hat alliance demonstrates IBM’s commitment
to the open-source movement and to provide our customers with an
unmatched range of platforms, operating systems, solutions and
services.”
“The Linux community has faced a number of real and imagined
barriers to its acceptance within the enterprise; IBM is helping
Red Hat to break some of those barriers down,” said Bill Peterson,
Research Manager at IDC. “One of the barriers to Linux in the
enterprise is the availability of technical support.
IBM’s support organization is legendary within the industry and
IDC believes that with this announcement the technical support
argument against Linux in the enterprise becomes moot. Red Hat is
already the leader in commercial Linux shipments and through its
numerous recently announced partnerships further solidifies itself
as one the top choices for enterprise Linux computing.”
About Linux
Linux is the cooperatively developed POSIX-oriented, multi-user,
multi-tasking operating system used worldwide. Linux is strongly
differentiated from virtually all other operating systems because
it is “open source” software, with the source code freely
available to all users. Unlike binary-only operating systems that
restrict access to the source code, Linux benefits from a worldwide
community of highly experienced programmers and technically savvy
academics who have the access to enhance and improve the system.
Linux is used as an exceptional-value, fully functional UNIX
workstation for Internet servers and other applications. Red Hat
Linux is maintained as “freely distributable” software available
from many sites on the Internet.
About Red Hat ® Software, Inc.
Founded in 1994, Red Hat Software is based in Research Triangle
Park, NC, where it builds and maintains the award-winning Red Hat
Linux operating system. Working in cooperation with a huge
development team of research, academic, and commercial software
developers over the Internet, Red Hat’s goal is to build the most
accessible and advanced operating system available anywhere. Red
Hat Linux for Intel®, DEC Alpha(TM), and Sun SPARC®
platforms continues to gain recognition in the computer industry:
>From 1996 to the present, Red Hat Linux was named InfoWorld’s
Product of the Year for three straight years, was given a
Productivity accolade in Software Development’s “Jolt” Awards, was
named an Environment/Desktop finalist in the Ziff-Davis European
Excellence Awards, won the editor’s choice awards from both the
Linux Journal and Australian Personal Computing Magazines, and won
the “Just Plain Cool” award.
For more information about Red Hat Software and Red Hat products
and technologies, please call 1-888-REDHAT1 or visit our web site
at http://www.redhat.com.
Reviews encouraged.
About IBM
IBM is the world’s largest technology company. For more information
about IBM, please visit http://www.ibm.com.
##
LINUX is a trademark of Linus Torvalds. RED HAT is a registered
trademark of Red Hat Software, Inc. UNIX is a registered trademark
of The Open Group. INTEL is a registered trademark of Intel
Corporation. SPARC is a registered trademark of SPARC
International, Inc. Products bearing the SPARC trademarks are based
on an architecture developed by Sun Microsystems, Inc. ALPHA is a
trademark of Digital Equipment Corporation.
Contact: Jen Apryle
Schwartz Communications
781-684-0770
redhat@schwartz-pr.com
Kathleen Kenney
IBM
212-745-3350
kkenney@us.ibm.com