ENTERTAINMENT

Fujitsu Limited (TSE: 6702) and Red Hat (Nasdaq: RHAT) today announced that they have signed a global partnership agreement to technically enhance and market Red Hat Enterprise Linux solutions for enterprise customers running mission-critical applications on Fujitsu's Intel-based servers powered by Intel(R) Xeon(TM) and Itanium(R) processors. The agreement significantly expands the scope of the companies' cooperative relationship to date. According to the terms of the agreement, Fujitsu and its principal subsidiaries and affiliates, including Fujitsu Siemens Computers, become Premier partners for the fulfillment and service of the complete Red Hat Enterprise Linux line of solutions on Fujitsu's Intel-based PRIMERGY servers worldwide. The parties will collaborate in software development, marketing, sales, delivery, and support efforts to optimize Red Hat Enterprise Linux for mission-critical use on Fujitsu hardware. Fujitsu also plans to work to ensure that all its enterprise applications are compatible with the Red Hat Enterprise Linux platform, so that customers will have the benefit of running a fully integrated solution from Red Hat and Fujitsu. In addition, as part of their partnership, Fujitsu and Red Hat will create joint engineering teams at various Red Hat locations who will work together to reinforce mission-critical features and functionality of Linux for enterprise systems. Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS was first in Red Hat's line of enterprise solutions. Released in May of 2002, Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS has been widely adopted in mission-critical infrastructure. Quarter over quarter sales of Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS increased by 38% in Red Hat's fiscal fourth quarter, which ended February 28, 2003. Recently Red Hat introduced Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES and WS for use on departmental servers and technical workstations. "Fujitsu is recognized as a global technology leader in the enterprise market," said Kevin Thompson, CFO of Red Hat. "Customers in all regions will benefit from the robust, enterprise solutions Red Hat and Fujitsu will build together." Fujitsu, a global leader in large-scale, mission-critical computing platforms, has been offering Red Hat Linux solutions worldwide on its Intel-based PRIMERGY servers since March 2001. Leveraging its expanded collaboration with Red Hat, Fujitsu plans to make enhanced Red Hat Enterprise Linux solutions available on its high-end Intel Xeon and Itanium processor family-based Linux servers currently under development. "The global partnership we are announcing today marks not only a significant milestone in our growing relationship with Red Hat but also an important step in the development of our high-end Linux solutions," said Akira Yamanaka, group senior vice president, Enterprise Systems Group, Fujitsu Limited. "Through this expanded collaboration with Red Hat, Fujitsu will be able to provide customers worldwide with the most advanced mission-critical Linux computing solutions." "Today's announcement boosts Intel and Fujitsu's joint effort to develop new mainframe-class Intel-based Linux servers," said Mike Fister, senior vice president and general manager, Intel Enterprise Platforms Group. "The partnership between Fujitsu and Red Hat will benefit Linux customers with enhanced reliability, functionality and performance for mission-critical Intel Xeon and Itanium-based servers." "Oracle is seeing Linux become increasingly important in enterprise data centers, and the strategic partnership between Fujitsu and Red Hat brings an expansion of Linux offerings to customers worldwide," said Dave Dargo, vice president, Linux Program Office at Oracle Corp. "Oracle's products already support Fujitsu's high-performance and high-reliability server business on a global basis and we look forward to working with Fujitsu to promote Oracle9i Real Application Clusters as a key technology for delivering mission-critical systems on Linux." "VERITAS, Fujitsu, and Red Hat's missions are to provide customers with best of breed solutions for enterprise computing," said Kevin Reinis, vice president of business development and strategic alliances, VERITAS Software. "VERITAS high availability, data protection, and storage management products, running on Red Hat Linux, combined with Fujitsu's high-performance servers provide our customers with a robust, interoperable Linux platform for their most demanding enterprise applications."