I just got the press release: Caldera, Conectiva, SuSE, Turbolinux Partner To Create UnitedLinux, And Produce A Uniform Version Of Linux For Business Majority of enterprise system and software vendors including AMD, Borland Software Corporation, Computer Associates, Fujitsu Siemens, Fujitsu Japan, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intel, NEC, Progress Software, and SAP, support effort to create standard Linux platform LINDON, Utah, CURITIBA, Brazil, NUREMBERG, Germany, and BRISBANE, Calif. -May 30, 2002- Linux Industry leaders Caldera International, Inc. (Nasdaq: CALD), Conectiva S.A., SuSE Linux AG, and Turbolinux, Inc., today announced the organization of UnitedLinux, a new initiative that will streamline Linux development and certification around a global, uniform distribution of Linux designed for business. UnitedLinux addresses enterprise customers' need for a standard, business-focused Linux distribution that is certified to work across hardware and software platforms, accelerating the adoption of Linux in the enterprise. Under terms of the agreement, the four companies will collaborate on the development of one common core Linux operating environment, called UnitedLinux software. The four partners will each bundle value added products and services with the UnitedLinux operating system and the resulting offering will be marketed and sold by each of the four partners under their own brands. Nearly every vendor supplying a piece of the technology infrastructure used by businesses has expressed support for UnitedLinux, including systems and software vendors AMD, Borland Software Corporation, Computer Associates, Fujitsu Siemens, Fujitsu Japan, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intel, NEC, Progress Software, and SAP. Independent hardware and software vendors spend considerable effort certifying their products and services on individual Linux distributions to ensure product compatibility for their customers. UnitedLinux will significantly diminish the number of distributions that vendors are asked to certify and will provide a true standards-based Linux operating environment . Customers Benefit Through Unity According to research firm IDC, a 2001 survey of 800 North American and Western European companies found that 40% of the respondents were either using or testing Linux in their organizations. UnitedLinux will help further speed enterprise adoption of Linux by providing businesses with a greater choice in the number of applications and hardware certified to work on the uniform version of Linux. Customers will also benefit from the global sales, localization, education, support and services that all four UnitedLinux vendors will collectively provide. The collaboration of the four leading Linux companies will result in an enterprise Linux offering, which is truly global by virtue of the companies' ability to provide local language support, training and professional services, in addition to the support of strategic partners. UnitedLinux will provide one unified Linux code base for IBM's complete eServer product line, AMD's current 32-bit and forthcoming 64-bit AMD Athlon and AMD Opteron processor-based platforms, and Intel's x86 32-bit and Itanium processor family platforms. UnitedLinux supports LSB, Li18nux, and GB18030 standards, as well as enabling installations in English, German, French, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese languages. In addition UnitedLinux unleashes a massive research and development organization for Linux in the enterprise. Effectively, the four companies involved in this process will shift dollars and resources once allocated to creating and maintaining custom Linux operating environments and divert them to new R&D on Linux enterprise software. UnitedLinux is dedicated to bolstering the enterprise readiness of the platform, but in the same collaborative spirit from which Linux was founded and continues to flourish. Participation and Availability While today's announcement outlines the founding members of UnitedLinux, the initiative is open for additional Linux companies to participate. The four partners currently plan to each offer their own server products based on UnitedLinux by the end of 2002. For additional information on UnitedLinux, contact Caldera, Conectiva, SuSE or Turbolinux or go to www.unitedlinux.com. About UnitedLinux UnitedLinux is a standards-based, worldwide Linux solution targeted at the business user and developed by Caldera, Conectiva, SuSE, and Turbolinux. Designed to be an enterprise-class, industry-standard Linux operating system, UnitedLinux provides a single stable, uniform platform for application development, certification, and deployment, and allows Linux vendors, Independent Software Vendors, Independent Hardware Vendors, and Original Equipment Makers to support a single high value Linux offering. For more information, go to www.unitedlinux.com # # # ADDENDUM AMD AMD looks forward to working with UnitedLinux. Innovating within open standards is a basic tenet at both AMD and UnitedLinux. The combination of an enterprise-ready standard Linux, and high-volume, industry standard 32-bit and 64-bit server platforms from AMD will provide shared customers with a high-performance platform for enterprise computing. -- Rich Heye, Vice President Platform and Infrastructure, AMD Borland As a leading provider of Linux development environments, Borland supports the efforts around UnitedLinux. This organization should help in making it easier for Borland to offer our technology running on Linux from more vendors and help to open up new opportunities and channels for Borland. -- Simon Thornhill, VP and General Manager of rapid application solutions at Borland Caldera Caldera sees the formation of UnitedLinux as a tremendous benefit to the industry, to our customers, to our 16,000-member reseller channel, and to our IHV and ISV partners. Linux and Open Source have already changed the way software is developed in the new online world. UnitedLinux now offers a viable business model and creates a unified environment that will attract many more global business solutions to Linux enabling far greater adoption and use. Caldera plans to make Linux not just an alternative OS, but the dominant choice for businesses worldwide who are wanting to take advantage of the benefits of online services. -- Ransom Love, Chairman and CEO, Caldera International Computer Associates As a company that has demonstrated unmatched commitment to Linux as an enterprise- computing platform, CA is extremely supportive of the UnitedLinux initiative. We believe that this broad-based cooperative effort will further accelerate the embrace of Linux by customers across all market segments and will enable them to realize the significant technical and business benefits that Linux offers in their distributed and mainframe implementations. -- John Pincomb, VP of Marketing at Computer Associates Conectiva UnitedLinux represents the addition of the best qualification of each of these companies. As they are in different places, they can add qualifications that each one has developed in order to answer to the challenges of the local markets, creating a product that increases the number of answers to the technical demand. It would be very difficult an individual company to get such a wide coverage in so many aspects. In addition, the organization model we are adopting, an alliance with cooperation and contribution of best practices, is in accordance with the cooperative spirit Linux has wrought. -- Jaques Rosenzvaig, CEO of Conectiva Free Standards Group UnitedLinux´s commitment to LSB certification is a natural. I look forward to the further growth of the Linux market acceptance of open source methodologies and wider certification of Linux products. -- Scott McNeil, Executive Director of the Free Standards Group Fujitsu Linux is one of the most important strategic platforms for Fujitsu, and we have been actively developing hardware and software products, services and solutions based on Linux. We welcome UnitedLinux and commend its efforts to create a common and stable Linux distribution environment for system vendors like Fujitsu and business customers as well. Fujitsu is pleased to lend its fullest support to UnitedLinux's activities. -- Masaharu Kitaoka, General Manager of Linux Division, Fujitsu Limited. Fujitsu Siemens Computers UnitedLinux transforms Linux into a business operating system par excellence. The level of performance, scalability and availability will be extraordinary. Combined with our PRIMERGY servers, UnitedLinux will provide a platform for business-critical computing solutions. -- Dr. Joseph Reger, Chief Technology Officer Fujitsu Siemens Computers HP As the #1 vendor of Linux solutions and the leading proponent of standards-based computing, HP believes UnitedLinux represents an important milestone that will accelerate the use of Linux by enterprises around the world. Businesses of all sizes that are deploying Linux now have the additional benefit of this unified platform. -- Martin Fink, general manager, HP Linux Systems Division IBM The formation of UnitedLinux offers multiple benefits to the industry, proving yet again that cooperation on standards simplifies application development and deployment for vendors thereby providing our mutual customers with new applications more quickly. Ultimately, UnitedLinux will accelerate Linux adoption in the industry. -- Steve Solazzo, General Manager, Linux, IBM. Linux International Open Source licensing leads to each vendor having the same functionality in the base system over time. This effort shows forethought in making that effort a planned, cooperative event. Rather than spend their money re-engineering the basic underlying functionalities of reliability, scalability and availability, these vendors will be able to build a common platform with which to innovate new features that their customers desire. I wish the old Unix vendors had learned that lesson. "For many years the analysts have been saying that the marketplace can not support so many distributions of Linux, hinting that only one or two might survive. Once again the Linux community has come back with a unique answer which may prove the analysts both right and wrong. This bold step should give a strong base distribution that will satisfy the needs of the software vendor for consistency and the hardware vendor for support, yet allow differentiation at the upper levels to meet the needs of diverse customers." Jon "maddog" Hall, Executive Director of Linux International. Open Forum Europe OpenForum Europe was formed to accelerate and broaden the use of Linux and Open Source Software in business, breaking down the perceived business blockers that our research has shown may slow down its adoption by business. The announcement of United Linux is very welcome, tackling potential duplication of effort and via the partner collaboration will boost confidence of CIOs in selecting Linux. UnitedLinux is a future-oriented step that has the full support of OpenForum Europe. -- Graham Taylor, Programme Director, OpenForum Europe NEC NEC believes that any activities of the UnitedLinux will be useful for all of us -- Linux users, developers and system integrators -- related to the enterprise systems. NEC welcomes such activities and will contribute development of future Linux market for enterprise. -- Chieko Takahashi, Senior Manager of Open Source Software Solution Center, NEC Solutions, NEC Progress Software We are encouraged by the announcement of a UnitedLinux Operating System and look forward to its first release. We see the collaboration between Caldera, SuSE, Turbolinux and Conectiva as being a most effective way of integrating several Linux distributions into one standard based Linux Operating System that is specifically targeted for business implementations. This is an essential step in the evolution of the Linux OS, which will provide notable economical and technological benefits to business customers and software companies like Progress. -- Maggie Alexander, Vice President of Product Planning at Progress Software SAP UnitedLinux will assist SAP in extending our Linux reach while maintaining the clear and simple structure of the distributions and databases supported by SAP solutions. Throughout the world, UnitedLinux will help to make SAP solutions on Linux an even more compelling offering with respect to service, support, reliability and performance to price ratio. -- SAP AG, Karl-Heinz Hess, Member of the Extended Executive Board SuSE Linux AG UnitedLinux provides our customers a business Linux that can truly be called the 'best of the best'. Global accounts will especially welcome the worldwide availability of one unified product combined with a set of services delivered either by a local Linux player or an international acting partner like IBM Global Services. -- Gerhard Burtscher, CEO SuSE Linux AG Turbolinux Asia Pacific is one of the fastest growing markets for Linux and UnitedLinux will only accelerate that rapid growth. Turbolinux has market leadership in Asia Pacific with major enterprise customers, hardware and software partners throughout the region, as well as aiding in China's massive undertaking to select a technology infrastructure for the entire country. UnitedLinux will benefit these customers, especially those in the largest enterprises that use Linux across their global infrastructures. With today's announcement, there are no credible arguments left against Linux in the enterprise. Linux will take its deserved place alongside every other enterprise operating environment. -- Ly-Huong Pham, CEO of Turbolinux