Swedish Armed Forces Chooses Red Hat and Open Source

STOCKHOLM, Sweden--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Red Hat (NYSE: RHT), the world's leading provider of open source solutions, today announced that the Swedish Armed Forces has made the decision to migrate its servers from Windows NT to Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Following the deal, the Swedish Armed Forces will start replacing Windows NT with Red Hat Enterprise Linux across its core IT infrastructure.

“At a time when there is a lot of hype around new proprietary operating system launches, the decision of the Swedish Army to migrate from Microsoft to open source is a major testament to the flexibility, control and security of open source software”

The agreement sees FMLOG Servicedesk, the IT department of the Swedish Armed Forces, now able to offer Red Hat Enterprise Linux solutions to any division or branch of the military. At present, Red Hat Enterprise Linux is the operating system platform on nearly 200 servers running in-house developed software within the core IT infrastructure of the Swedish Armed Forces. The decision to migrate to Red Hat was primarily based on its advanced security features, but additionally the strong support, ease of migration and compatibility with existing in-house software were important factors. FMLOG Servicedesk plans to extend its internal usage of Linux in the future.

”There has been a demand for Linux within the Swedish Armed Forces for quite some time, which is why we’ve now decided to enter this deal. The primary reasons for us choosing Red Hat Enterprise Linux were the product lifecycle as well as Red Hat’s position as the leading open source provider. What also affected the decision was the fact that Red Hat Enterprise Linux was fairly easy to migrate and is compatible with our in-house-developed programs,” said Jonna Lidman of the Swedish Armed Forces’ headquarters.

“At a time when there is a lot of hype around new proprietary operating system launches, the decision of the Swedish Army to migrate from Microsoft to open source is a major testament to the flexibility, control and security of open source software,” commented Werner Knoblich, VP, EMEA at Red Hat. “We are very happy to see that yet another company within the public sector has chosen Red Hat. The fact that the Swedish Armed Forces commit to Red Hat Enterprise Linux shows once again that it is a secure platform with high demands on availability and flexibility. The selection of Red Hat by the Swedish Armed Forces follows a number of public sector Linux projects in Sweden, paving the way for wider adoption within the Swedish government.”

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About Red Hat, Inc.

Red Hat, the world's leading open source and Linux provider, is headquartered in Raleigh, NC with satellite offices spanning the globe. CIOs rank Red Hat the most valuable software vendor three years running in the CIO Insight Magazine Vendor Value study. Red Hat is leading Linux and open source solutions into the mainstream by making high quality, low cost technology accessible. Red Hat provides operating system software along with applications, management, and middleware solutions, including JBoss Enterprise Middleware Suite (JEMS). Red Hat is accelerating the shift to service-oriented architectures (SOA) and enabling the next generation of web-enabled applications running on a low-cost, secure open source platform. Red Hat also offers support, training and consulting services to its customers worldwide and through top-tier partnerships. Red Hat's open source strategy offers customers a long term plan for building infrastructures that are based on and leverage open source technologies with focus on security and ease of management. Learn more: http://www.redhat.com

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