Intel, Netscape, Greylock and Benchmark Partners Take Equity Positions in Red Hat Software

SAN JOSE, Calif., September 29, 1998 Today at ISPCON Fall `98, Red Hat, Inc. , a leading distributor of the Linux operating system, announced that Intel, Netscape Communications Corporation and venture capital firms Greylock and Benchmark Partners have taken minority equity positions in the company. Red Hat builds, maintains and provides technical support for the Red Hat Linux operating system. Linux runs on Intel, Alpha and Sun SPARC platforms. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

Additionally, the firm announced it is establishing an Enterprise Computing Division, according to Red Hat president, Robert F. Young. The new division will offer enterprise grade products and services to support global, mission-critical applications. "As the growing number of users demonstrates, the Linux operating system is ready for enterprise-wide applications," Young said. "Red Hat intends to further extend its Linux leadership into the enterprise."

"Today's announcement reaffirms Netscape's commitment to Linux as a strategic enterprise-ready platform," said John Paul, senior vice president and general manager of the Server Products Division at Netscape. "Netscape's customers are demanding a manageable, scalable and reliable Internet operating system for deploying the applications required in the net economy. Customers are finding that Linux provides the manageability, scalability and reliability they require."

"Our investment in Red Hat demonstrates the technological value of the open source development model for technologies such as operating systems," stated William S. Kaiser, general partner at Greylock. "They have done a great job of supporting the open source development model and delivering the benefits of that model to a growing number of Linux users."

"Since July, the five leading providers of database software Oracle, Informix, Computer Associates, Sybase and IBM have all announced plans to support Red Hat Linux OS," stated Red Hat's Young. "We believe that their OS strategies, combined with today's announced investments, continue to fuel the adoption of Linux as a robust and secure operating system."

Red Hat, Inc. , based in Research Triangle Park, N.C., is a software development company that sells products and provides services related to Linux. Red Hat's mission is to provide professional tools to computing professionals. The company manufactures shrinkwrapped software versions of the Linux operating system, making it accessible to the broadest possible range of computer users. The company works with development groups around the world via the Internet to review, package and develop Linux-based tools, making them useful for computing professionals. The company builds tools that are released as freely reusable software available for unrestricted use. Red Hat additionally publishes books and software applications and provides technical support. Visit Red Hat on the web at http://www.redhat.com/

ABOUT LINUX:

Linux is a cooperatively developed, POSIX-based multi-user, multi-tasking operating system used worldwide in commercial, academic and development organizations. Linux is used as a low-cost, fully functional UNIX workstation for applications ranging from Internet servers to reliable work group computing. The operating system was initially developed by Linus Torvalds. Today, the core product and enhancements, including all source code, are freely available on the Internet under a GPL license.

Red Hat and Sybase

"Sybase has supported the Linux community for several years, with an available Open Client library," said Raj Sehgal, director of product management, Enterprise Server Business, Sybase, Inc. "We are reinforcing this support by making Adaptive Server Enterprise, the first enterprise-class Linux database available today through Red Hat, one of the leading distributors of the Linux operating system. Now this community can take advantage of a highly scalable, high-performance database engine."

Robert Young, president of Red Hat, Inc. agreed. "The flood of support from top-tier companies like Sybase certainly serves as a catalyst for the wide-scale adoption of Linux in the Enterprise market," said Young. "Sybase is adopting an effective, customer-oriented strategy in supporting their products on the Red Hat Linux OS."

Indeed the future of the Linux OS is quickly becoming the present. Currently, Linux has support of leading companies such as Sybase, Oracle, and Netscape, Informix, Computer Associates, Interbase, and Corel, as well as the support of other leading software vendors such as Appgen, Cygnus, Pick Systems, Collective Technologies, Red Hat.

Adaptive Server Enterprise
Adaptive Server Enterprise is optimized to provide scalable, high-performance online transaction processing capabilities for business-critical applications in unpredictable, mixed-workload environments.

ABOUT LINUX
Linux is the freely distributable, cooperatively-developed POSIX-based, multi-user, multi-tasking operating system used worldwide. Linux is used as a high value, fully-functional UNIX? workstation for applications ranging from Internet Servers to reliable work group computing. It has a strong presence among Internet Service Providers (ISPs), institutions of higher education, and web developers. It is also the fastest growing UNIX platform in the enterprise with an estimated 7 million users. For more information about Linux, visit http://www.linux.org/.

ABOUT RED HAT SOFTWARE, INC.
Founded in 1994, Red Hat, Inc. is based in Research Triangle Park, NC, where it builds and maintains the award-winning Red Hat Linux operating system. Red Hat Linux for Intel, DEC Alpha(TM), and Sun SPARC? platforms continues to gain recognition in the computer industry: From 1996 to the present, Red Hat Linux was twice named InfoWorld's Product of the Year, was given a Productivity accolade in Software Development's "Jolt" Awards, and was named an Environment/Desktop finalist in the Ziff-Davis European Excellence Awards.

For more information about Red Hat, Inc. and Red Hat products and technologies, please call 1-919-547-0012 or visit our web site at http://www.redhat.com Reviews encouraged.

LINUX is a trademark of Linus Torvalds. RED HAT is a registered trademark of Red Hat, Inc. Sybase and Adaptive Server are registered trademarks of Sybase, Inc. UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group. INTEL is a registered trademark of Intel Corporation. SPARC is a registered trademark of SPARC International, Inc. Products bearing the SPARC Trademarks are based on an architecture developed by Sun Microsystems, Inc. ALPHA is a trademark of Digital Equipment Corporation. ORACLE is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation.