Akibia Wins Novell 2005 Linux Partner of the Year Award; Novell Recognizes Akibia's Innovative Linux Solutions and Customer Momentum With Prestigious Award.

WESTBOROUGH, Mass. -- Akibia, a leading independent IT services provider, announced today that it was named Novell 2005 Linux Partner of the Year in the Americas. The award recognizes Akibia's commitment to Linux and the company's work with Fortune 1000 companies to implement Linux in the data center. The award was presented to Akibia at Novell's annual Partner Summit conference, held in conjunction with Novell's BrainShare 2006 in Salt Lake City. Akibia is a Novell Gold Partner.

"Companies are deploying Linux in the data center with increasing frequency," said Steve Erdman, Vice President and General Manager Channels and Alliance at Novell. "These companies turn to Akibia for implementation and support services because Akibia has proven to be a trusted partner and advisor in all of their data center decisions. In recognizing Akibia with this award we honor the company's experienced technical engineers and strong customer support team, and their work implementing and supporting SUSE Linux at many customer sites."

As a leading, independent provider of data center support and professional services to Fortune 1000 companies, Akibia enables customers to increase the availability, reliability and performance of their infrastructure while lowering overall IT support costs. With expertise in multi-vendor and multi-platform environments, Akibia provides unbiased consultation and implementation services on the best platform and hardware to meet an organization's unique needs. In the past year, Akibia's expanding customer base has increasingly leveraged the company's UNIX and Windows to Linux migration services, spurred by a desire to reduce operating costs, and benefit from improved reliability, scalability and performance.

"We are excited by our partnership with Novell and the opportunities that exist to bring innovative data center solutions to our customers and prospects," said Tom Willson, CEO of Akibia. "We are honored by the recognition from Novell and anticipate that the partnership will continue to grow as more companies become educated on the benefits of Linux in the data center."

In addition to being a Novell Gold Partner, Akibia is also a certified Novell education center. The company's veteran, expert instructors provide standard training as well as custom course development designed to meet a company's unique needs. Akibia's education centers are located throughout the United States and Europe.

About Akibia, Inc.

Akibia (www.akibia.com) provides enterprise-class IT solutions that enable leading companies worldwide to maintain and optimize their data center environments and security infrastructure. From Data Center Support and Managed Infrastructure Services, to Network and Security Solutions, Akibia partners with its customers to develop flexible, cost-effective solutions that enhance the availability and performance of their mission-critical IT infrastructure. Founded as Polaris Service in 1988 and headquartered in Massachusetts, Akibia is an independent IT services company with offices across the United States and Europe.

Akibia is a registered trademark of Akibia, Inc. All other product and company names mentioned are the property of their respective owners and are mentioned for identification purposes only.