VDEL TO OEM IBM LOTUS SOFTWARE ON RED HAT ENTERPRISE LINUX DESKTOP FOR EASTERN EUROPE PC MARKET

March 4, 2008 -- MOSCOW, RUSSIA -- VDEL, a Services Distribution company headquartered in Vienna, Austria, announced it has signed a new Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) software agreement with IBM (NYSE: IBM) and IBM distributor LX Polska to offer a new desktop document software solution called "Open Referent" embedded with IBM Lotus Notes, IBM Lotus Symphony and Red Hat (NYSE RHT) Enterprise Linux Desktop.

This Microsoft desktop alternative brings together the strengths of IBM Lotus Notes e-mail and calendaring, Lotus Symphony editors, Red Hat Linux Desktop operating system, and VDEL document management application services.

Yesterday, approximately 25 Russia-based chief information officers from a variety of large and small influential government agencies and businesses gathered in Moscow with IBM and their partners to hear details about the new OpenReferent offering. Lotus Symphony software, which included in the OpenReferent offering, is based on the Open Document Format (ODF), an International Organization for Standardization (iso.org) standard.

ODF is an XML-based document file format which allows businesses to unlock their information making it universally accessible on any platform and on the Web in highly flexible ways. ODF allows people to save and interchange editable office documents, spreadsheets, charts and presentations. Many governments worldwide have announced an open standards based policy that includes ODF.

"This is important because it's a secure and cost-effective Microsoft desktop alternative," said Kevin Cavanaugh, vice president, Lotus Software, IBM. "It's for organizations in an key emerging market; and it's another example of IBM's OEM strategy paying off for our customers and their customers." Cavanaugh added that the offering comes as a response to requests from customers that they need an alternative offering to Microsoft that includes all the components -- operating system, e-mail, calendaring, office productivity tools, and document management.

"OpenReferent is a highly competitive alternative to Microsoft offerings for large organizations," said Oleg Churko, Director of Research Institute for Information Security, Minsk, Byelorussia. "Taking into account the unmatched security offered by the Linux platform, it will set a new standard for document management. We are also very happy the IBM is again taking the lead in offering full solutions based on Open Source, while mounting a real challenge to Microsoft in this arena."

Aleksandar Spagnut, Director RusHotel from Moscow, Russia, added, "We are extremely excited that we finally have an alternative document management offering to Microsoft based on Open Source that fits our needs -- collaboration of multiple offices in large territory, information security, scalability and, last but not least excellent price and performance. We are already starting to implement this and are happy that IBM is again taking the lead in providing a total solution for the small and medium sized market based on Open Source."

"Today's agreement with VDEL further expands IBM's commitment to providing customer choice through Linux, from the server to the desktop," said Inna Kuznetsova, cross-IBM Linux executive. "This agreement will deliver a powerful suite of Lotus products, coupled with Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop, so that businesses in Russia will now have choice and an alternative to Microsoft."

The three companies will also work together on the certification of their joint offerings to comply with government information confidentiality requirements. Red Hat server and desktop platform has already achieved a 4+ security rating in the U.S., Europe and Russia, helping it to comply with government regulations regarding conflidential information, such as data about the citizens and government figures.

Open Referent is based on the recently announced IBM Lotus Open Collaboration Client Solution marketing agreement with Red Hat.

Business partners classified as Red Hat Advanced Business Partners and Lotus-authorized IBM Business Partners may sell the Red Hat and IBM Lotus products throughout North America with a Red Hat Enterprise Linux subscription, and may additionally offer a six-month Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop trial. Red Hat will be providing a value-added services offer to qualified Red Hat Advanced Business Partners to provide end customers with implementation services for rapid, easy solution deployment.

IBM's Open Collaboration Client Solution includes IBM Lotus Notes e-mail and collaboration software for which more than 140 million seat licenses have been sold worldwide, and IBM Lotus Sametime, a unified communication and collaboration platform featuring an industry leading business instant messaging solution. An integrated Lotus Sametime with instant messaging and chat comes with Lotus Notes as part of the core solution.

It also includes IBM Lotus Symphony, a set of productivity tools for creating documents, spreadsheets, and presentations, IBM WebSphere Portal, a server-based foundation for building portal applications and services, with optional accelerators, accessed through a common entry point via browsers such as Microsoft Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari, and IBM Lotus Connections, the industry's first social software for business. The open solution also includes IBM Lotus Quickr, a team-based collaboration and document management software and IBM Lotus Expeditor, an Eclipsed-based Rich Client Platform (RCP) for developing and deploying applications.

About the Companies

Red Hat Enterprise Linux is the world's leading commercial-strength, open source operating system that boasts an extensive ecosystem of software and hardware partners that help Red Hat to provide customers with an opportunity to decrease operating costs, improve service levels and optimize flexibility.

VDEL GmbH, headquartered in Vienna, Austria, is a leading IT Services Distribution company in Central Europe, Eastern Europe, and Russia. VDEL offers around-the-clock support, product translation and localization with maintenance of updates and upgrades, education and hands-on training, examination and market support. VDEL provides and distributes these and other related services through local value-add partner network that helps customer increase their productivity using selected vendor and open source products.

Based in Warsaw, Poland, LX Polska is a LOGIX Company, IBM Premier Business Partner, and Authorized Red Hat distributor of e-business IT solutions.

For more information about the joint Lotus solution, visit www.redhat.com/partners/partnerspotlight/ibm/lotus/, www.ibm.com/press/lotusphere, www.redhat.com, www.vdel.com, or http://logix.pl/  

For more information about Open Document Format visit www-306.ibm.com/software/lotus/products/wp-managed-client/odf.html

Contacts:

Michelle McIntyre, IBM Global Media Relations, mc@us.ibm.com, Mobile: 408-483-6681
Anna Androshina, IBM East Europe/Asia Communications, Anna.Androshina@ru.ibm.com, +7 495 775 8800 (ext. 1137), Mobile:  +7 985 762 5372
Sveltlana Stavreva-Putrushkova, IBM Austria Communications, STAVREVA@at.ibm.com, Office: +43 1 21145 4263
Milan Prohaska, VDEL, milan@vdel.com
Kerri Catallo, Red Hat Communications, kcatallo@redhat.com, 919-754-4268 Michelle McIntyre


IBM, the IBM logo, Lotus and Lotus Notes, Quickr, Sametime and WebSphere are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporate in the United States, other countries or both.  Microsoft is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United States, other countries, or both. Safari is a trademark of Apple. LINUX is a trademark of Linus Torvalds.  RED HAT is a registered trademark of Red Hat, Inc. and its subsidiaries in the US and other countries. Other company and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners.  

Red Hat and IBM Accelerate Deployments of IBM Lotus Notes and Domino on
Linux~
Joint Marketing initiative to include Red Hat Enterprise Linux, IBM
Lotus Open Notes and IBM Lotus Domino 8 server

Raleigh NC – January 21, 2008 – Red Hat (NYSE: RHT), the world’s leading
provider of open source solutions, and IBM today announced a new
marketing initiative with Lotus Open Collaboration Client Solution for
Red Hat, targeting small and medium-sized enterprises. The initiative
combines Red Hat Enterprise Linux Advanced Platform, Red Hat Enterprise
Linux Desktop, IBM Lotus Notes Client with Lotus Symphony and IBM Lotus
Domino 8 server. The joint Lotus Solution Bundle will easily and
cost-effectively allow customers to deploy Lotus Notes with Red Hat
Enterprise Linux on the desktop to experience enhanced collaboration,
productivity and security with a compelling return on investment.

Business partners classified as Red Hat Advanced Business Partners and
Lotus-authorized IBM Business Partners may sell the Red Hat and IBM
Lotus products throughout North America with a Red Hat Enterprise Linux
subscription, and will additionally offer a six-month Red Hat Enterprise
Linux Desktop trial. Red Hat will be providing a value-added services
offer to qualified Red Hat Advanced Business Partners to provide end
customers with implementation services for rapid, easy solution
deployment.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux is the world's leading commercial-strength,
open source operating system that boasts an extensive ecosystem of
software and hardware partners that help Red Hat to provide customers
with an opportunity to decrease operating costs, improve service levels
and optimize flexibility.

"Red Hat is proud of our joint work with IBM to reduce the complexity of
deploying and operating messaging and collaboration solutions," said
Scott Crenshaw, vice president, Enterprise Linux Business at Red Hat.
"This initiative is further evidence of our commitment to not only
reduce our customer's acquisition costs, but to reduce their yearly
operating expenses, while greatly increasing the security of their
information."

"We are excited about this initiative with Red Hat. We are able to now
leverage the best practices gained from deploying this solution
internally for IBM employees through the IBM CIO office to our
customers," said Kevin Cavanaugh, vice president, Lotus Software at IBM.
"This is an important milestone, providing a cost-effective Microsoft
desktop alternative that supports heterogeneous environments to our
customers."

"The Lotus Solution shows Red Hat's dedication to ensuring the
successful implementation and integration of its products into the
marketplace by providing its Advanced Business Partners with real,
tangible assistance," said Jimmy Bracco, general manager, Lotus 911.