Channel Insider Names Red Hat Enterprise Linux 2008 Product of the Year

RALEIGH, N.C.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE: RHT), the world’s leading provider of open source solutions, today announced that Channel Insider has named Red Hat Enterprise Linux the top server operating system in its 2008 Product of the Year awards. Winners exemplify attributes of high importance to the channel including value, support and profit potential. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is the leading platform for open source computing, coupling the innovation of open source technology and the stability of a true enterprise-class platform.

“Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations”

As the winner in the Server Operating Systems category, Red Hat Enterprise Linux was selected by an elite group of value added resellers (VARs) that sell a range of solutions and vary in size. Channel Insider polled the VARs to rank products based on criteria, including familiarity with the product, opportunity for after-market sales, product profit potential, impact of the product on the technology market as a whole and the product vendor's service and support. Second place and third place in the Server Operating Systems category behind Red Hat Enterprise Linux were awarded to Sun Microsystems Solaris 10 and Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SPI respectively.

“We continue to see strong interest for Red Hat Enterprise Linux as a cost-effective solution that provides value and drives growth on a budget without compromising capability,” said Chris Pyle, president and CEO of Champion Solutions Group, a Red Hat Advanced Business Partner. “We appreciate that Red Hat continues to invest in the channel, allowing us to better meet our customers' needs.”

Channel sales provided 54 percent of Red Hat's revenue in its fiscal quarter ending February 29, 2008, and the company doubled its business through traditional channels including VARs and system integrators during its fiscal year ending on that date. Red Hat has also more than doubled the number of its Advanced Business Partners in the last year. Advanced Business Partners receive direct access to Red Hat sales, pre-sales, support and marketing staff, as well as other substantial benefits to enable rapid growth of the partners' Linux and open source solutions portfolio.

“We are very honored to receive the award for best server operating system given the depth of expertise Channel Insider provides professionals in the channel community,” said Mark Enzweiler, vice president, North America channels at Red Hat. “We continue to focus on becoming a channel-centric company and are seeing increased sales across the channel for Red Hat Enterprise Linux and JBoss Enterprise Middleware solutions.”

Recently, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 was recognized by SearchEnterpriseLinux.com as Product of the Year in the Linux Server Distributions category for leadership in virtualization. The operating system was also recognized as a 2008 Product of the Year by Datamation in the Enterprise Linux category, and was named Best Open Source Solution in the 2008 SIIA Codie Awards.

To view the full list of winners across all 32 categories in the Channel Insider Product of the Year awards, please visit www.channelinsider.com/c/a/News/2008-Channel-Products-of-the-Year/.

For more news about Red Hat, visit www.redhat.com. For more news, more often, visit www.press.redhat.com.

About Red Hat, Inc.

Red Hat, the world's leading open source solutions provider, is headquartered in Raleigh, NC with over 50 satellite offices spanning the globe. CIOs have ranked Red Hat first for value in Enterprise Software for four consecutive years in the CIO Insight Magazine Vendor Value study. Red Hat provides high-quality, affordable technology with its operating system platform, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, together with applications, management and Services Oriented Architecture (SOA) solutions, including the JBoss Enterprise Middleware Suite. Red Hat also offers support, training and consulting services to its customers worldwide. Learn more: http://www.redhat.com.

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