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The New Century Technology Council (NCTC) will hold the inaugural meeting of the NCTC Software Alliance on Wednesday, December 17, 2003. Michael Tiemann, Chief Technical Officer of RedHat and an open source software pioneer, will provide remarks regarding the software industry's history, trends, and direction. The event will be held at and will include a tour of the Virginia Tech Terascale Computing Facility, home of System "X", the third fastest supercomputer in the world. Dr. Vinod Chachra, CEO of VTLS Inc., and chairman of the Software Alliance steering committee, suggests that, "Mr. Tiemann's presence here is a great opportunity for the members of this alliance. He is very interested in touring the Terascale Computing Facility and interacting with leaders from the region's software industry." Michael Tiemann is a true open source software pioneer. He made his first major open source contribution over a decade ago by writing the GNU C++ compiler, the first native-code C++ compiler and debugger. His early work led to the creation of leading open source technologies and the first open source business model. In 1989, Tiemann's technical expertise and entrepreneurial spirit led him to co-found Cygnus Solutions, the first company to provide commercial support for open source software. During his ten years at Cygnus, Tiemann contributed in a number of roles from President to hacker, helping lead the company from fledgling start-up to an admired open source leader. Today, he serves as Chief Technical Officer of RedHat, the recognized leader in enterprise solutions that take full advantage of the irrepressible power of the open source model. RedHat has 24 locations spanning 13 countries and a presence in all major markets. RedHat is a profitable, publicly-traded company (NASDAQ:RHAT) and is one of the most successful companies in the open source industry. Parties interested in attending the Software Alliance event should contact the New Century Technology Council.