Red Hat Unveils Complete Open Source Operating System Family for e-commerce Internet Servers and Embedded Systems - Product Announcement

Edge: Work-Group Computing Report, April 3, 2000

Red Hat, Inc. (NASDAQ:RHAT), the leading provider of open source solutions for Internet infrastructure, Monday introduced its complete family of operating systems (OS) for today's e-commerce servers and the growing number of embedded, Internet-enabled devices.

The combination of Red Hat Linux 6.2 and Red Hat eCos (embedded configurable operating system) 1.3, both available today, makes Red Hat the only company to provide a powerful continuum of reliable open source OSes and supporting development tools and services that span the broad spectrum of Internet computing from servers to portable devices.

"Monday's announcement expands the Red Hat family of products and services to continue to deliver the highest value for building the infrastructure for Internet computing," said Matthew Szulik, president and CEO of Red Hat, Inc. "Red Hat's comprehensive product and service offerings, backed by our partnerships with many of the world's computing leaders, like Compaq, Computer Associates, Dell, HP, IBM and Intel, lets enterprises easily capitalize on the promise of open source for more powerful and reliable e-business."

"Internet developers are rapidly moving their UNIX application deployments to Linux," said Mike Pope, director of Enterprise Software Programs at Intel. "This comprehensive offering from Red Hat gives developers a solid foundation and reason to accelerate their move to the Linux OS, where we are seeing a great amount of development and innovation around Intel-based solutions."

Red Hat Linux 6.2 for E-commerce and Internet Servers Version 6.2 is the latest edition of the award-winning Red Hat Linux open source operating system. It includes an easier graphical installation and increased scalability and reliability for the most intense e-business environments.

Red Hat Linux 6.2, Professional Edition, provides the complete software infrastructure needed for enterprise organizations to quickly, easily and reliably deploy powerful e-commerce Web servers. This package includes: -- The complete CCVS credit card processing package, which provides a critical piece of software infrastructure for any company trying to conduct business on the Web

-- 30-day configuration support for the Apache Web server, the number one public Web server solution

-- 180 days Priority Online Access for software updates

-- 30 days of telephone support and 90 days of email support

-- five application CDs with a wide variety of popular enterprise and Internet software for Linux.

All editions in the Red Hat Linux 6.2 suite of products include: -- improved high availability clustering capabilities to increase performance and reliability of network-based services

-- a Web-based interface for configuration of clusters

-- more comprehensive load-balancing technology to provide higher performance and more scalable service accessibility

-- a partitionless install on DOS-based systems that eases the migration to Linux.

eCos 1.3 OS for Embedded Devices eCos 1.3 is the latest version of Red Hat's open source, configurable, application-specific operating system for embedded systems. It provides manufacturers of post-PC era devices with the flexibility and expertise to bring intelligent networking applications to next-generation Internet and embedded devices such as Internet appliances, PDAs and handhelds. eCos 1.3 features a built-in TCP/IP stack that enables embedded devices to communicate with the Internet.

The configurability of eCos 1.3 enables developers to create an embedded device and offers the best combination of size and performance. With nearly universal development and target platform compatibility, eCos 1.3 sets the new standard in efficiency and utility in post-PC development.

Red Hat has partnered with industry leaders to provide its customers with the best solutions for Internet computing.

"Every Compaq's ProLiant server is certified to run Red Hat Linux, giving customers the broadest range of robust, industry leading servers to implement their Linux solutions," said Rick Becker, director of Software Marketing, Compaq Computer Corporation. "Red Hat's new 6.2 Linux distribution with exciting features like software RAID, coupled with Compaq ProLiant servers and storage offer new levels of performance and reliability to meet the computing needs of customers worldwide."

"Our customers are looking to us to offer complete e-business solutions for the Enterprise," said Ken Farber, senior vice president, world wide alliances for Computer Associates. "The solutions we offer to Red Hat Linux clients, coupled with Red Hat's ongoing commitment to e-commerce products and services, is an important benefit to our clients."

"Dell plans to offer pre-installation of Red Hat Linux 6.2 on all Dell PowerEdge servers and selected configurations of its Precision WorkStations, OptiPlex and Dimension PCs, and Latitude and Inspiron notebook PCs later this month," said Russ Holt, vice president and general manager, departmental and workgroup servers, Dell Computer Corporation's Enterprise Systems Group. "As the number two PC server provider worldwide, Dell was the first major systems vendor to pre-install Red Hat Linux on its servers and workstations. Red Hat Linux 6.2 pre-installed on appliance servers and today's rack dense PC servers, such as the Dell PowerEdge 2450 and PowerEdge 6350, will enable service providers, dot coms and click-to-brick customers to address the needs of their Internet infrastructure and expand their e-commerce businesses more easily and effectively."