Red Hat Enterprise Linux Platform of Choice for Lower Saxony IT Centre; Lower Saxony Police Force Opts for Vendor-Independence and High Performance on 64-Bit Platform.

MUNICH, Germany -- Red Hat, Inc. (NASDAQ: RHAT), the world's leading provider of open source solutions to the enterprise, today announced that the Lower Saxony IT centre (Informatikzentrum Niedersachsen - IZN) has deployed Red Hat Enterprise Linux as the platform to provide IT services for the police force in Lower Saxony, in Germany. IZN is the main systems centre for IT and communications in Lower Saxony, providing 11,000 employees with access to the central case tracking system "Nivadis" at the central police headquarters and its departments. The Java-based web application operates entirely on Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

"The police force in Lower Saxony has decided in principle to base its IT infrastructure on Linux. Using Red Hat Enterprise Linux on our servers offers us not only high performance on a 64-bit platform but also, importantly, efficient central management of the whole system," explains Michael Breest, head of department for client/server systems and processing at IZN. "Linux has come a long way in recent years. We plan to use Red Hat Enterprise Linux for other new areas in the future. Red Hat Network makes managing and expanding the system a lot easier."

Nivadis was developed by the police in Lower Saxony in a joint IT project with the management consultancy company Mummert Consulting at the Hanover Police Office for Technology and Procurement. The system, programmed entirely in Java, replaced more than 20 separate applications, which previously had to be called up alongside the previous system, "Mikado", requiring intensive use of resources. To access Nivadis, the clients use the Mozilla web browser. All internal processes and database queries run centrally at IZN on 64-bit servers using Red Hat Enterprise Linux. When software platforms for the new Nivadis system were being evaluated, Red Hat Enterprise Linux performed particularly well in comparison with Unix.

In addition to the Nivadis project, IZN is setting up a central archive with full-text search function for the Lower Saxony police and this has also been installed on a Red Hat platform. There are currently a total of more than 80 servers at the IZN running various versions of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (AS, ES, WS); and they are all maintained and administered centrally by just three members of staff, via a Red Hat Network Satellite Server.

"We are delighted with this partnership with the IZN", says Werner Knoblich, Director of EMEA at Red Hat. "The selection of Red Hat Enterprise Linux by IZN shows that our close cooperation with the community represents a superior model for further development. Red Hat was the first provider able to support the 64-bit platform. Since Red Hat also puts cooperation with the community above just developing particular features, our customers avoid dependence on one individual provider."

For more information please visit http://www.europe.redhat.com.

About Red Hat, Inc.

Red Hat, the world's leading open source and Linux provider, is headquartered in Raleigh, NC with satellite offices spanning the globe. Red Hat is leading Linux and open source solutions into the mainstream by making high quality, low cost technology accessible. Red Hat provides operating system software along with middleware, applications, and management solutions. Red Hat also offers support, training and consulting services to its customers worldwide and through top-tier partnerships. Red Hat's Open Source strategy offers customers a long-term plan for building infrastructures that are based on and leverage open source technologies with focus on security and ease of management. Learn more: http://www.europe.redhat.com

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