SAP Announces Investment in RedHat

Enterprise resource planning giant, SAP AG yesterday became the latest software vendor to announce an investment in Linux distributor, RedHat Software Inc. The German software giant said Tuesday that its SAP Venture Fund division had made an equity investment in RedHat, although it did not disclose how big the investment was. Endorsing the move, Howard Lau, executive VP of SAP Venture Fund said the division only gave money to companies whose technology would have a significant impact and benefit for SAP customers. "Linux is becoming a significant force in the industry. We expect it to emerge as an attractive platform for enterprise computing, and Red Hat is a leading Linux distributor," he said.

The news comes just weeks after SAP - somewhat late in the day compared to other software vendors - announced that it would port its R/3 ERP application to RedHat Linux. At the time, a spokesperson for SAP denied it was going to make any investment in the company, but apparently it's now changed its mind and decided to follow in the footsteps of Computer Associates, IBM, Novell, Oracle, and Compaq and give financial backing to the free OS distributor.

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Red Hat Unveils redhat.com Marketplace

Business/Technology Editors

NOTE TO MEDIA: Photo is available in a Smart News Release(TM) on Business Wire's Home Page at www.businesswire.com

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 18, 2000

redhat.com Marketplace Creates a Central Point to Learn About and

Purchase Internet Solutions based on Red Hat Linux and other Leading

Technologies from Industry Leaders

Red Hat(R), Inc. (NASDAQ:RHAT), the leader in open source Internet infrastructure solutions, today unveiled the redhat.com Marketplace, an innovative new service that offers companies a single, comprehensive Web destination to learn about and purchase products for open source Internet computing initiatives.

Business/Technology Editors

NOTE TO MEDIA: Photo is available in a Smart News Release(TM) on Business Wire's Home Page at www.businesswire.com

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 18, 2000

redhat.com Marketplace Creates a Central Point to Learn About and

Purchase Internet Solutions based on Red Hat Linux and other Leading

Technologies from Industry Leaders

Red Hat(R), Inc. (NASDAQ:RHAT), the leader in open source Internet infrastructure solutions, today unveiled the redhat.com Marketplace, an innovative new service that offers companies a single, comprehensive Web destination to learn about and purchase products for open source Internet computing initiatives.

In addition to purchasing products and services, redhat.com Marketplace users can view special product spotlights and product reviews, search the site for specific solutions and download free demo versions of leading Internet solutions. A weekly "Featured Solution" will include an article on timely topics for IT managers and e-commerce developers. Solution vendors that wish to participate in the Marketplace should visit www.redhat.com. Sponsorship and marketing opportunities for partners include special "Solutions Showcases" that let vendors detail all of their Linux and open source-based solutions.

Widespread Partner Support

Participating vendors in the redhat.com Marketplace include: Dell Computer Corp. (NASDAQ:DELL), Compaq Computer Corp. (NASDAQ:CPQ), IBM (NYSE:IBM), Oracle Corp. (NASDAQ:ORCL), SteelEye Technology, Inc., eLance.com, Neoware Systems (NASDAQ:NWRE), Omnis Software, Pervasive Software (NASDAQ:PVSW), Rackspace.com, Symantec Corp. (NASDAQ:SYMC), ThinkFree.com Corp. and ZoneTrader.com.

"IBM's participation in Red Hat's Open Source Marketplace is an opportunity to showcase some of the solutions and technologies that have earned us a leadership position in the Linux market," said Dick Sullivan, vice president, Solutions & Integration Marketing, IBM Software. "As one of the earliest supporters of Linux, IBM has built an unmatched portfolio of hardware, software and services that truly integrates Linux into the enterprise. Red Hat's new portal should be a significant open source forum and we are excited to play an important part."

redhat.com and Open Source Momentum

redhat.com attracts the largest global audience of open source developers and users. redhat.com Marketplace continues the rapid growth of redhat.com as the premier portal for a wide variety of open source software and information solutions. Red Hat's subscription service, introduced with version 6.0, offers continual updates to Red Hat Linux users through an innovative, automated Internet delivery service. In February, Red hat unveiled Wide Open News (www.wideopen.com), an editorially independent Web site for Linux and open source news and analysis. In March, redhat.com added several new services, including: "What can Red Hat do for Me," which delivers users a made-to-order report featuring the information, products and services right for that customer's needs, and "Success Stories," which details the business need, deployment and cost savings of Red Hat Linux for Internet Infrastructure solutions.

International Data Corp. (IDC) research states that paid Linux shipments grew faster than any other server operating system over the past two years. IDC preliminary figures for 1999 show Linux shipments hold 24.6 percent of the server operating system market, up from 15.8 in 1998. IDC research also shows 40 percent of all spending on Linux servers is for Internet-related applications, making Linux servers firmly embedded in the Internet infrastructure. Research firm NetCraft, Inc. (www.netcraft.com), states that 29 percent of all public Web servers also run on Linux, making Linux the most popular operating system for public Web sites.

About Red Hat, Inc.

Founded in 1994, Red Hat (NASDAQ:RHAT), is the leading provider of open source, Internet infrastructure solutions, delivering on the promise of open source from small embedded devices to the most prodigious enterprise. Red Hat applies its technological leadership to create open source solutions for Internet infrastructure and post-PC environments, offers services backed by the best understanding of open source and the most comprehensive resources, delivers the brand of a widely trusted open source leader and corporate partner, and persists in an indelible commitment to the virtues of open source to lead a revolution in the computing industry.

History

In 1993 Bob Young incorporated the ACC Corporation, a catalog business that sold Linux and UNIX software accessories. Then in 1994 Marc Ewing created his own version of Linux, which he named Red Hat Linux. Ewing a in October, and it became known as the Halloween release. Young bought Ewing's business in 1995, and the two merged to become Red Hat Software with Young serving as CEO.

Red Hat went public on August 11, 1999, the eighth-biggest first-day gain in Wall Street history. Matthew Szulik succeeded Bob Young as CEO in November of that year.

On November 15, 1999, Red Hat acquired Cygnus Solutions. Cygnus provided commercial support for free software and housed maintainers of GNU software products such as GNU Debugger and GNU Binutils. One of the founders, Michael Tiemann, served as the Chief Technical Officer of Red Hat and now serves as the vice president of open source affairs. Later it acquired WireSpeed, C2Net and Hell's Kitchen Systems.

In February 2000, InfoWorld awarded Red Hat with its fourth consecutive “Operating System Product of the Year” award for Red Hat Linux 6.1. In 2001 it acquires Planning Technologies, Inc, and in 2004 AOL's iPlanet directory and certificate server software.

Company headquarters were moved from Durham, NC, to N.C. State University's Centennial Campus in Raleigh, North Carolina in February of 2002.

The following March Red Hat introduced the first enterprise-class Linux operating system: Red Hat Advanced Server, later named Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Dell, IBM, HP and the Oracle Corporation announced their support of the platform.

In December of 2005 CIO Insight Magazine conducted their annual Vendor Value Survey, where Red Hat ranked #1 in value for the second year in a row.

Red Hat stock was added to the NASDAQ-100 on December 19, 2005.

Red Hat acquired open source middleware provider JBoss on June 5, 2006 and JBoss became a division of Red Hat. In 2007 it acquired Metamatrix and made an agreement with Exadel to distribute its software.

On September 18, 2006, Red Hat released the Red Hat Application Stack, the first certified stack integrating JBoss technology.

On December 12, 2006, Red Hat moved from NASDAQ (RHAT) to the New York Stock Exchange (RHT).

On March 15, 2007 Red Hat released Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, and in June, they acquired Mobicents.

Fedora Project

Main article: Fedora Project

The Fedora Project is a Red Hat-sponsored, community-supported open-source project. Its stated goal is to promote the rapid progress of free and open-source software and content, and its rapid innovation is possible using open processes and public forums.

The project is led by the Fedora Project Board, which comprises community leaders and Red Hat members, and this group steers the direction of the project and of Fedora, the Linux distribution it develops. Red Hat employees work with the code alongside community members, and many Fedora Project innovations make their way into new releases of Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

Business model

Red Hat operates on a professional open-source business model based on open code, community development, professional quality-assurance services, and subscription-based customer support.

Developers take the open source Linux kernel and adapt and improve it to fit certain needs. The code they write is open, so more programmers can make further adaptations and improvements. When a problem is found, an entire community of users can come together to find a solution. The whole development process is said by some^{[citation needed]} to work at a faster pace and at a lower cost than that of a proprietary model where the code is not visible to users.

Red Hat sells subscriptions to the support, training, and integration services that help customers in using the open source software. Customers pay one set price for access to services such as Red Hat Network and up to 24x7 support, and they receive unlimited access to these services.

Programs and projects

One Laptop per Child

Red Hat engineers work with the One Laptop per Child initiative, a non-profit organization created by members of the MIT Media Lab. The mission is to create an inexpensive laptop and provide every child in the world access to open communication, open knowledge, and open learning. The Children's Machine, or 2B1, is the latest version of this technology. The machines will run a slimmed-down version of Fedora as the operating system.

108

108 is an open content and collaboration portal aimed at developers. It lets Red Hat deliver developer-oriented content and facilitates the collaboration of Red Hat project managers, customers, partners, and communities. 108 was announced at the 2006 Red Hat Summit in Nashville and is currently a beta.

But recently, the 108 website was not available, and the link of 108 was redirected to Red Hat Magazine Dev Fu (tried on Jan 25, 2008).

Mugshot

Red Hat sponsors Mugshot, an open project that is creating "a live social experience" based around entertainment. It refocuses technological thinking from objects (files, folders, etc) to activities, like web browsing or music sharing. These topics are the focus of the first two features in Mugshot, Web Swarm and Music Radar. These were already underway when the project was announced at the 2006 Red Hat Summit in Nashville.

Dogtail

Dogtail is an open source automated GUI test framework. It was initially developed by Red Hat, and is free software released under the GPL. It is written in Python and allows developers to build and test their applications. Red Hat announced the release of Dogtail at the 2006 Red Hat Summit in Nashville

Red Hat Magazine

Red Hat Magazine is the online news publication produced by Red Hat. It brings together issues of interest from inside and outside of the company, focusing on in-depth discussion of the development and application of open source technologies. It covers news from Red Hat and the Fedora Project, it updates readers on public licensing and the Creative Commons, and it features interviews with industry leaders and the movers and shakers of the open source world.

Under the Brim was the company's original newsletter. Wide Open Magazine was first published in March 2004 as a means for Red Hat to share technical content with subscribers on a regular basis. Under the Brim and Wide Open Magazine merged in November of 2004 to become Red Hat Magazine.

Red Hat Exchange

Red Hat recently announced that it has reached an agreement with major free software / open source (FOSS) companies that will allow them to make a distribution portal called Red Hat Exchange, which will resell FOSS software with the original branding intact.