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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tejek who wrote (149676)	8/14/2002 3:39:32 PM
From: tejek	Respond to of 1583386

Want to send this story to another AOL member? Click on the heart at the top of this window. Red Hat unveils deals to challenge rivals By Reed Stevenson SEATTLE, Aug 13 (Reuters) - Red Hat Inc. <RHAT.O>, a top distributor of Linux operating system software, unveiled two new initiatives on Tuesday to delve deeper into the corporate computing system market and challenge mainstream software makers. Red Hat struck deals with BEA Systems Inc. <BEAS.O>, maker of the Weblogic server software that allows businesses to run online applications, and it said it will support new microchips from No. 2 chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices Inc. <AMD.N>. The distributor of open source Linux software, which can be used and modified freely unlike proprietary software from rival Microsoft Corp. <MSFT.O>, said BEA's Weblogic would run on Red Hat's server operating system, making it more friendly to the lucrative market for corporate computing. "The fact that such a large supplier of application server software (BEA) is migrating over to Red Hat Linux is a pretty strong statement of where they see the market moving," Red Hat Chief Executive Matthew Szulik told Reuters. In a separate announcement, Red Hat said that its software will support AMD's latest Athlon and Opteron chips that are based on a new technology that supports advanced 64-bit computing as well as existing 32-bit applications. Red Hat has already said that it will support AMD rival Intel Corp.'s <INTC.O> 64-bit Itanium 2 chips by putting Red Hat software into Hewlett-Packard Co. <HPQ.N> servers and workstations that use Intel's chips. LOWER COST ALTERNATIVES By embracing both chip architectures, Szulik said Red Hat and chipmakers were aiming to provide a lower-cost alternative to Unix-based machines from Sun Microsystems Inc. <SUNW.O>. "The multiplatform capability is central to our theme. As companies migrate off of Sun's Solaris, the breadth of opportunity is huge," he said, referring to Sun's Unix operating system that, along with its million-dollar servers, ran much of the Web in the late 1990s. With current economic conditions weak and corporate budgets tight, however, companies have been searching for new ways to cut costs by adopting cheaper and more flexible technology. Amazon.com Inc. <AMZN.O>, an early adopter of open source software, migrated to Red Hat Linux. Both of Tuesday's deals, which target high-end enterprise computing tasks, signify another step in Red Hat's shift toward serving the corporate server and software markets, Szulik said. Red Hat, which distributes its own versions of the popular Linux operating system, is expecting 90 to 92 percent of its June-August second-quarter revenue to come from enterprises. Although the company saw first-quarter revenue shrink from a year earlier and posted a loss, it still has a cash war chest of more than $286 million to help it penetrate new markets. Much of new growth would be driven by further migration to Linux from Unix-based systems, the operating system on which Linux is based, Szulik said. Red Hat also needs new growth to prop up its stock price, which, at the close of $4.79 on Tuesday, is half of its January peak and a far cry from lofty highs above $100 set in 1999 after its initial public offering. The focus on corporate systems is also a reflection of the difficulty that Linux has had in breaking into the market for desktop operating systems, analysts have said, an area that Microsoft dominates with Windows. 08/13/02 19:23 ET Copyright 2002 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved

To: tejek who wrote (149676)	8/14/2002 3:53:53 PM
From: g_w_north	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1583386

<The news has long been expected, but investment bank SG Cowen said in a research note to clients that it was the first time Intel had confirmed details of the type of technology it will use.> Intelspeak for -- No need to purchase AMD chips whatsoever as we'll have a technological lead for at least the next three years. Intel knows that the Opteron/Clawhammer represents the first formidable challenge for them in the x86 environment and they will stop at nothing to create FUD.