November 5, 1999 Web posted at: 10:14 a.m. EST (1514 GMT) by Phil Hochmuth

From...

(IDG) -- In an effort to support "all things open source," Red Hat this week announced that it will now support several popular open source applications running on its versions of Linux.

Red Hat will support a variety of open source applications, such as the Apache Web server, which runs a majority of the world's Web sites, and mail applications such as Sendmail and Postfix, used widely by enterprises and service providers worldwide.

Red Hat started offering configuration support for Apache Web server after the release of Linux 6.1 last month. Stating immediately, the company will support configuration and maintenance for Apache Web server, Sendmail and Postix on all Red Hat Linux versions.

The company plans to expand its support coverage to other open source applications in the near future, and possibly even to support other versions of noncommercial Linux.

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The company hopes to entice enterprise network managers to use more open source applications by offering professional-level support for open source systems, beyond Internet-based user groups and the open source community.

Current support pricing for Red Hat Linux, or support for open source applications running on Linux, is $250 per incident. Expanded plans can be purchased for $949 for five incidents per year, $1799 for 10 incidents and $3499 for 20 incidents. Annual support plans for unlimited calls will cost $35,000 for the Silver plan (9 a.m. to 9 p.m. EST support), $45,000 for the Gold plan (24-hour support and training for one staff member) and $55,000 for the Platinum plan (24-hour support and training for two staff members).

Open source software such as Apache Web server and the Linux server operating system have become popular systems to run not only on network servers, but also on server appliances (servers dedicated to single tasks such as e-mail and Web site hosting). According to International Data Corp., Linux will be the fastest growing server operating system over the next four years. Dataquest, a San Jose research firm, also predicts big things the operating system, saying Linux will account for almost a quarter of worldwide server appliance revenue by the year 2003.

Red Hat hopes its support of multiple open source applications running on Linux will make the platform more attractive to corporate network managers looking for cheaper alternatives to commercial server operating systems.