SuSE, MandrakeSoft Each Announce New CEOs

François Bancilhon joins MandrakeSoft as New CEO

[ Thanks to Gaël Duval for this
release. ]

MandrakeSoft announced today that former founder and CEO of O2
Technology François Bancilhon has been appointed new Chief
Executive Officer of MandrakeSoft. Co-Founder Jacques Le Marois
remains Chairman and President of MandrakeSoft.

François Bancilhon’s main focus will be to increase
MandrakeSoft’s business and profitability while maintaining a
high-level of technology commitment in the Linux and Open Source
arena. François Bancilhon is 54.

Prior to joining MandrakeSoft, François Bancilhon gained
extensive experience in successfully managing software companies as
well as developing businesses in the information technologies
sector. He was a founder and CEO of O2 Technology–an object
database company that he successfully merged with Unidata in 1997.
In 1999, he was a founder and CEO of Arioso, an ASP company that
provides Human Resource and benefit management services to small
and medium-sized businesses in the US. More recently, he was Chief
Technology Officer of SomaLogic, a Biotech company based in
Boulder, Colorado. He is also a founder and Chairman of the Board
of Xyleme — an XML tools company based in Saint-Cloud, France.
François’s career began in the academic world, both in
Europe and in the US, in the field of relational and
object-oriented databases.

After eighteen months of intensive restructuring, MandrakeSoft
is showing extremely positive results: Revenue is up, while
expenses have been drastically reduced. The company is now at the
stage where it needs an experienced manager capable of taking it to
the next level of development, while keeping the Open Source spirit
which has always been one of MandrakeSoft’s main strengths.

“We all feel that François is an excellent match with our
company due to his strong business experience in the USA and in
Europe. We also highly value his academic background, which is very
close to the open source spirit.” said Jacques Le Marois, Chairman
and President of MandrakeSoft. He added: “We’re all very excited
that François has agreed to join MandrakeSoft as new
CEO.”

François Bancilhon stated: “Joining MandrakeSoft and the
Linux world has already been an outstanding experience during my
first weeks of presence. This was a new world for me, with an
incredible level of energy and vision. Mandrake Linux is much more
than just an operating system, it is a complete information system
solution. The potential of Free Software and the Linux community
are so powerful that I’m certain we’re about to experience a
radical visible movement within the computing industry. In the
meantime, much can be done at MandrakeSoft to increase the business
side of the company. I’m very excited to help MandrakeSoft become a
major player in the IT field, and look forward to working with
Jacques and the entire MandrakeSoft team.”

SuSE Linux Names Richard Seibt as New CEO

SuSE Linux today announced the appointment of Richard Seibt as
the company’s new Chairman of the Executive Board and CEO,
replacing Gerhard Burtscher.

Richard Seibt Burtscher, a turn-around specialist, joined SuSE
in December, 2001. He completed the restructuring of the business
and built a scalable infrastructure poised for growth. Burtscher
aligned the company on indirect sales, increased channel delivery
partners, pared product lines, and increased relationships with
ISVs and IHVs. Burtscher is one of the founding executive leaders
of UnitedLinux, an initiative that streamlines Linux development
and certification around a global, uniform distribution of Linux
designed for business.

Richard Seibt (50), will join the company on January 20, 2003
from his current role as a member of the Executive Board at United
Internet AG. He will be charged with the further growth and
expansion of the company.

Seibt brings 24 years of IT industry experience to SuSE Linux.
Following graduation in business administration, Seibt began his
career at IBM Germany. During his 20 year tenure at IBM, he held
executive positions worldwide in Business Development, Sales and
Marketing. He was CEO for IBM Software Sales and Marketing for
Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Later, as general manager, Sales
and Marketing of IBM Software for North America, Seibt led Sales
and Marketing efforts for OS/2 and IBM’s middleware. Most recently,
for the past four years, Seibt was a Executive Board member of
German-based United Internet AG, where he held operational
responsibility for several affiliates and the internationalization
of United Internet and selected affiliates.

“SuSE Linux has made industrial history in the Linux market with
innovative technologies and market-driven products,” said Seibt.
“SuSE has an excellent reputation with consumer and corporate
customers, as well as ISVs and IHVs. SuSE has several key
challenges in stepping up to the next level; First, to continue to
push the international Linux standard, UnitedLinux. Second, to make
use of the momentum in the market to extend with SuSE’s partners,
our penetration in medium-sized and large-sized corporate
customers. Third, according to the Open Source principle, to offer
private users and enterprises an alternative to the continuously
increasing license costs of proprietary operating systems and
standard office applications.”

“I am pleased that we could reach our goals in a very short
timeframe, even with the difficult macroeconomic climate today,”
said Burtscher. “We have created a solid foundation for SuSE’s
future growth. The new orientation of SuSE accomodates corporate
users’ as well as private users’ demands. With its role as the
product integrator of the UnitedLinux initiative, SuSE has the best
requirements for a stable global growth at its disposal. With
Richard Seibt, SuSE gets a new CEO that will meet and solve the
upcoming challenges, together with SuSE’s staff and partners, in
the same successful way.”