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Red Hat, a leading developer and provider of Linux-based operating system solutions, is already attracting the attention of some of Europe?s largest Enterprise customers and the industry?s largest software vendors just three months after setting up its first European office. The unprecedented interest from customers and the IT industry itself shows that customers and partners find the benefits of the Open Source model a compelling alternative to the proprietary software model. The European industry leaders which have embraced the Open Source model by signing agreements with Red Hat in Europe are Siemens, SAP, IBM, Dell, Intel, Oracle and Gateway. In addition, Red Hat has also signed up Europe?s largest distributors to spearhead the acceleration of Red Hat in Europe. With offices already in London, Munich and Ireland, Red Hat will be opening offices in France and Italy by the end of this year. Bob Young, CEO of Red Hat, said, ?Our ambition in Europe is to establish Red Hat as the European operating system of choice by partnering with the leading European vendors. Unlike the old proprietary software world, by having a strong engineering presence in Europe, Red Hat Europe has a key development role to play in enabling customers to realise the benefits of Red Hat Linux. European customers are no longer at the mercy of US centric software developers.? ?Until now, customers have been bound by the rules of the proprietary software model, which locks them in, restricts licensing and provides very slow technological innovation, all at a high total cost. Red Hat?s open source model, made possible by the Internet, eliminates every single one of these factors and places control in the hands of the customer for the first time,? added Young. Dell UK has named Red Hat as one of its five strategic partners that includes companies such as Microsoft, Novell, Oracle and SAP. Dell and Red Hat will work together on sales, marketing, support and development programmes aimed at the corporate market. Colin Tenwick, vice president and general manager for European operations at Red Hat, said, ?The momentum for Linux in the US is phenomenal. It is no different in Europe. The speed with which some of the industry?s key players have moved to work with Red Hat is testament to the huge interest in the market for a company to help customers benefit from more flexible, scalable and reliable software.? ?Our current focus is about helping build the skills among the IT community and establishing the distribution and support infrastructure that business users have come to expect. Our announcements today are just the beginning of an inevitable revolution in the software industry,? concluded Tenwick. Red Hat?s strategy for driving sales into the corporate market in Europe includes developing a distribution infrastructure with the market leaders. It has signed agreements with Computer 2000 and Ingram Micro to distribute its products to the reseller channel throughout Europe and local agreements with Markt & Technik in Germany and Gem Distribution in the UK to encourage widespread penetration into the market. Red Hat has appointed Saturn in Ireland for software manufacturing, purchasing and fulfilment, the first time that Red Hat is manufacturing outside the US. In September 1999, Red Hat announced its training strategy for Europe, which includes offering training and certification through Red Hat and through Europe-wide agreements with Global Knowledge and Siemens as Authorised Training Partners (see separate press release). Red Hat will offer certification courses for Red Hat Linux on a local basis while Global Knowledge and Siemens will offer training and certification globally. Siemens will also offer Red Hat Linux support to customers and is the first European-based training partner appointed by Red Hat. This strategy will enable Red Hat to build the skills among the developer community more rapidly and meet the demand for certification that it has already realised after two weeks of launching the programmes. About Red Hat, Inc. Founded in 1994, Red Hat is a leader in the development of Linux-based operating system software (OS) and services. Based in based in Durham, N.C., Red Hat builds the most accessible and advanced server OS available anywhere with technical innovations such as RPM and the disk druid installation tool. Red Hat Linux is available for Intel, Compaq Alpha and Sun SPARC platforms. Red Hat Linux available directly from the company?s website and through Red Hat's partner, distributor and reseller programs, which include top PC and server manufacturers like Dell, IBM and Hewlett-Packard. Red Hat Europe was established in July 1999 with its European headquarters based in Surrey, United Kingdom and offices throughout Europe. Red Hat Linux is sold and supported through a number of major distribution and industry partners throughout Europe. Red Hat Linux was named InfoWorld's Product of the Year for three years in a row, 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 the Linux Journal and Australian Personal Computing magazines, and won the 'Just Plain Cool' award from Australian Personal Computing magazine. At March's LinuxWorld Expo, more than 8,000 members of the Linux community voted Red Hat a 'LinuxWorld Favorite'. Red Hat Linux recently won a Product Excellence award from Software Development Magazine. LINUX is a trademark of Linus Torvalds. RED HAT is a registered trademark of Red Hat, Inc. UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group. All other names and trademarks are the property of their respective owners. An electronic version of this press release and all Red Hat releases are available at www.firefly.presscentre.co.uk. If you would like to receive future releases via email please visit www.firefly.presscentre.co.uk to register your details.
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Fiona Phelps |
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