Mumbai:

In September, 2003, Red Hat launched the ''open source architecture'' designed to be a roadmap for customers to build secure, high performance systems infrastructure based on open source software. Since then, Red Hat Enterprise Linux has been made available on seven hardware architectures and applications support for the platform has more than doubled.

According to Mike Evans, vice president of partner development at Red Hat, "A strong network of partnerships with the world''s leading applications vendors is vital to the adoption of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Since Red Hat Enterprise Linux was first made available in May 2002, we''ve experienced outstanding support from leaders in the software industry. With over 750 applications now certified on the Red Hat Enterprise Linux platform, and over 200,000 subscriptions sold, customers will have the great freedom of choice to build their Open Source Architectures utilizing a wide range of industry-leading solutions."

Oracle was the first leading software vendor to certify Oracle core products on Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Oracle continues to work closely with Red Hat to ensure that its partner ecosystem is certified on the platform. Shekhar Dasgupta, managing director, Oracle India Private Limited says, "We are seeing banks, government organizations and the education sector leading Linux adoption in India. Linux is bringing down TCO and complexity particularly in large scale deployments of mission critical applications which are accessed by departments and users across the length and breadth of the country. Oracle provides technical support for Linux operating system at no additional charge to customers. Our close relationship with Redhat gives customers in India an easy Linux adoption path."

Speaking on the occassion, Javed Tapia, director, Red Hat India, said, " Red Hat and Oracle have been working very closely in India. and we see Linux becoming the platform of choice for Oracle implementations in enterprises across the spectrum, ranging from large enterprises to SME''s across industry verticals."

Customer demand has grown significantly for Intel-based, enterprise computing solutions that run Red Hat Enterprise Linux," says Shrikant Patil, director, APAC solutions group, Intel Technology India Pvt. Ltd. "Working together, Intel and Red Hat will work with applications vendors to accelerate solutions availability and visibility on Red Hat Enterprise Linux for servers with Intel Xeon processors and Intel Itanium2 processors," he adds.