NEWS BRIEFS

Research Triangle Park, N.C. — Red Hat, Inc., a leader in developing, deploying and managing open source Internet infrastructure, announced its support of IBM’s new eServer, the next generation of servers created to handle the unparalleled demands of e-business.

IBM’s newly introduced eServer line is built around open standards and features mainframe-class reliability and scalability while providing capacity on demand to meet the intense requirements of today’s high-speed networks.

With this announcement, Red Hat Linux will run on the entire IBM eServer line and all of IBM’s Linux-enabled software, providing customers application flexibility across a variety of platforms from large enterprises to small businesses.

Red Hat and IBM entered an agreement in August 2000 to jointly market, distribute and support bundled IBM, Lotus, Tivoli and Red Hat software offerings. For more information and availability of these offerings, please see http://www.redhat.com/products/software .

“With the eServer launch just last week, it’s exciting to see the entire line embraced by Red Hat – the industry-leading Linux developer,” said Dick Sullivan, vice president, Solutions and Integration Marketing, IBM Software. “Red Hat clearly understands the demands placed on companies implementing e-business on Linux and can now offer customers support across highly scaleable server and middleware lines delivering an integrated solution for the smallest business to the largest enterprise.”

The IBM eServer family is designed for serious e-business – where customers need 24×7 reliability and security. The new line combines IBM’s best server assets, including years of expertise in developing servers and the software that works best on them, with an industry-leading commitment to deliver what customers need to make their e-infrastructure work for the next phase of e-business.

“IBM and Red Hat have a strong relationship that dates back to the early days of our company and has expanded several times, and we see this announcement as reinforcing IBM’s commitment to Linux and to Red Hat,” said Matthew Szulik, president and CEO, Red Hat, Inc. “The fact that Red Hat Linux supports the entire eServer line demonstrates the scalability, reliability and power of our offering. With Red Hat Linux and the IBM eServer line, IBM customers will have the best possible foundation on which to build their Internet infrastructure.”

Red Hat Linux will be supported on the complete IBM eServer Line, which includes:

– IBM eServer zSeries: most reliable, mission-critical data and transaction server on earth.

– IBM eServer pSeries: most powerful, technologically advanced UNIX server.

– IBM eServer iSeries: high performance, integrated business server for mid-market companies.

– IBM eServer xSeries: affordable, Linux-ready, Intel-based servers with mainframe-inspired reliability technologies.

In addition, Red Hat is making available via their Web site (www.redhat.com/products/software ) the following IBM middleware:

– Red Hat Linux and IBM DB2 Universal Database

– Red Hat Linux and IBM WebSphere Application Server

– Red Hat Linux and Lotus Domino

– Red Hat Linux and IBM Small Business Pack for Linux

International Data Corp. (IDC) research states that paid Linux shipments grew faster than any other server operating system over the past two years, and their preliminary figures for 1999 show Linux shipments hold 24.6 percent of the server operating system market, up from 15.8 in 1998. IDC also states that Red Hat holds 50.2 percent of Linux vendor market share and that Red Hat Linux is by far the most popular distribution, preferred by 68.7 percent of U.S. Linux users.

Research firm Netcraft, Inc. ( http://www.netcraft.com ), states that as of May 2000, 30 percent of all public Web sites run on Linux-based operating systems, making Linux the most popular choice for deploying public Web sites. IDC research shows 40 percent of all spending on Linux servers is for Internet related applications, firmly entrenching Linux servers in the Internet infrastructure.

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 Dell, Compaq, Computer Associates, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intel, Netscape, Novell, Oracle and SAP.

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