Boston, Massachusetts - (The Hosting News) - April 10, 2006 - A global program to help customers plan for, accelerate and optimize their deployments of Linux solutions has been developed by Intel Corporation and open source and Linux provider, Red Hat.

According to the companies, the Red-Hat Intel Solution Acceleration Program will launch this month and be the first of its kind for Linux solutions development, initially focusing on developing and disseminating tools for platform virtualization and grid computing.

Jon Bork, Director of the Open Source Program Office at Intel explained, ''The Red Hat-Intel Solution Acceleration Program will give customers real-time access to the critical information, tools and support they need to build and optimize high-value Linux solutions on Intel-based platforms. This program will help customers quickly and effectively take advantage of new Intel platforms and technologies as they come to market.''

Tim Yeaton, Executive Vice President of Enterprise Solutions at Red Hat added, ''We're responding to what customers have told us they really need to support their advanced deployments of Linux and open source. The programs Intel and Red Hat have selected are aimed at equipping customers with in-depth domain knowledge and providing hard core data to make complex architectural decisions.''

The Red Hat-Intel Solution Acceleration Program operates online and at centers that include hubs in McLean, Virginia; Mumbai, India; and Munich, Germany; and 14 satellite locations spanning the globe. The hubs will be equipped with Intel Itanium 2 and Intel Xeon processor-based servers, Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 processor-based corporate desktops, Intel Centrino mobile technology-based laptops, and Intel-based storage devices, including key pre-production platforms. All of the centers, which will be located at Red Hat facilities, will be utilized by services and solution experts from Intel and Red Hat, as well as customers and other partners who participate in solutions deployment.

Services offerred at the centers and/or online will include:

-- Training and Knowledge transfer: Customers will have access to advanced training as well as a knowledge repository of technical white papers, case studies, benchmarks, Web seminars, reference solutions and more.

-- Proof of Concept Support: Customers can save time and resources by running proof of concepts using the state-of-the-art hardware, software and technical support offered at the program centers. Customers will be invited to actively participate at the local centers.

-- Reference Solutions and Certified Solution Stacks: The program will give customers access to information about previously tested or deployed solutions based on Red Hat and Intel technology. Red Hat has begun certifying a number of software solution stacks, and through the program will work with Intel to expand the number of certified solution stacks available and introduce a hardware component into certified solution stacks.

-- Application Testing and Porting: The program will make available hardware and software for customers to test recently ported RISC and other code, and test operating systems and application compatibility.

-- Channel and Vertical Product Definition: Red Hat and Intel will work together to define and test hardware and software solutions specifically for the reseller channel and for select vertical market segments.

-- Advanced Knowledge Projects: The program will also concentrate on new technology initiatives to ensure the combination of Red Hat Enterprise Linux on Intel platforms supports the latest technology trends including virtualization and multicore. For example, program centers will be used for pilot projects of Intel Virtualization technology on Fedora Core 5 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, using the Xen hypervisor.

To learn more about the Red Hat-Intel Solution Acceleration Program, please visit: www.redhat.com/promo/intel.

For more information about Intel, please visit: www.intel.com.