Black Duck Selected for Novell's Market Start Program; Will Tap Worldwide Training Partner Network

Business Wire, March 20, 2006

SALT LAKE CITY -- Black Duck Software, the leading provider of software compliance management solutions, today announced that Novell has invited the company to join the Novell Market Start program. Black Duck's participation in Market Start will foster closer collaboration between the two companies, and in turn will help enterprises that are building and deploying complex applications in Novell environments govern how their software assets are created and managed.

In a related development, Black Duck announced that its protexIP(TM) suite has met Novell's demanding "YES CERTIFIED" requirements. YES certification assures customers that Black Duck and Novell products are fully compatible.

Black Duck's protexIP platform helps management, software architects, developers and legal counsel navigate the complex intellectual property and software licensing issues that can impact the value of software assets. The company pioneered software compliance management, and today the Black Duck KnowledgeBase is the most complete database of information on open source components, code and binaries, as well as open source and commercial licenses, available. Hundreds of enterprise customers rely on protexIP, making it the most widely used solution of its kind in the industry.

"Black Duck is seeing very strong demand for protexIP among large enterprises. So joining the Novell Market Start program and becoming 'YES' certified was a natural move for us," said Douglas A. Levin, CEO of Black Duck Software. "Our customers fully appreciate the value of being able to use open source and third-party code. They recognize the value of accelerating software development and managing their software IP at the same time. Black Duck's close collaboration with Novell will help extend our reach into the enterprise and into the large open source community."

John Beuchert, director of open source marketing programs at Novell, said, "Black Duck is helping hundreds of customers experience the benefits of open source by enabling them to identify, manage and govern the often complex license obligations of open source and proprietary software components in source and binary forms. Market Start will open doors for Black Duck, and YES certification gives our mutual customers our assurance that Black Duck's protexIP is fully interoperable with Novell products. We believe the combination will be of significant interest to businesses worldwide."

Novell launched the Market Share program in 2005 to promote innovation and to accelerate open source adoption by giving companies access to Novell sales and market channels, including more than 1,000 training partners worldwide.

About Black Duck Software

Black Duck Software(TM) is the leading provider of software compliance management solutions that help companies govern how software assets are created, managed and licensed. Black Duck's offerings help businesses take maximum advantage of open source software while at the same time ensure that they satisfy the obligations associated with the code they use. Black Duck's customer base includes enterprises, product developers, outsourcers, law firms and other organizations worldwide that are concerned with protection of software intellectual property. For more information about Black Duck, visit www.blackducksoftware.com.

(C) 2006 Black Duck Software, Inc. Black Duck Software, Sorting Out Software IP, and protexIP are trademarks of Black Duck Software, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective holders.