Open Country and Progeny Join Forces to Help Improve Security & Management of Red Hat Linux Deployments

BELMONT, Calif. and INDIANAPOLIS, Aug. 3 /PRNewswire/ -- Progeny and Open Country today announced that -- through the implementation of a co-marketing agreement -- customers will be able to take advantage of each other's offerings to obtain updates to Red Hat versions 7.x, 8.x and 9 (which Red Hat no longer supports); efficiently deploy Progeny patches; and to perform new system provisioning, software management, asset management, backup/restore, remote administration and remote desktop sharing using OC-Manager.

Progeny provides a security update service for legacy Red Hat(R) Linux(R) distributions. Open Country, a new software company focused on enabling the manageability of the Linux-powered enterprise, recently unveiled its full-featured, affordable and easy-to-use Linux system management solution, OC-Manager.

"Both companies want to put our customers in the driver's seat when it comes to controlling their Linux environment," said Michael Grove, chief executive officer for Open Country. "That's what made this a natural alliance. In short, we offer Progeny customers easy access to a system management solution that allows IT teams the ability to install and automatically provision, manage, and support Linux servers, blades, desktops, and appliances within hours. Progeny's Transition Service is a natural fit with our solution. Together, we're making it possible for IT organizations to improve security and reduce costs."

Progeny's president and chief executive officer, Garth Dickey, noted that subscribers to the Progeny Transition Service (PTS) -- which offers security updates for end-of-life Red Hat(R) Linux(R) products -- benefit by having additional time to develop and implement their platform migration plans. Even though Red Hat orphaned its customer base when it dropped support for non-enterprise products, Progeny customers know their platforms remain secure.

"We believe many of our customers could benefit from Open Country's OC-Manager, either by automating the delivery of their Red Hat(R) Linux(R) patches or by using OC-Manager to administer their entire custom Linux infrastructure," said Dickey.

Open Country (Desktop Linux Consortium pavilion #1481) and Progeny (booth #790) will be on hand to discuss their products at LinuxWorld, which runs August 3-5, 2004 in San Francisco.

Open Country and Progeny also will present a webinar on August 12, 2004 at 9:00 a.m. PDT, which will highlight the value of their complementary offerings. Further information is available at http://www.opencountry.com or http://www.progeny.com . About Open Country

Open Country helps managed service providers, OEMs, and enterprise customers manage their IT infrastructure by providing integrated system provisioning, management and support software for Linux servers, blades, desktops and appliances. Open Country's solutions allow customers to build, manage, and support their Linux systems throughout their own or their customers' organizations, ensuring the availability, scalability, reliability, performance, and security of the IT infrastructure anywhere in the world. Open Country products can be deployed in hours and typically pay for themselves in weeks. For more information, visit http://www.opencountry.com About Progeny

Progeny is the leading independent provider of Linux platform technology. With more than a decade of experience building Linux solutions, Progeny's Linux experts pioneered a number of the technologies and best practices that shape the Linux landscape today. Progeny was founded by Debian Linux creator Ian Murdock. Progeny offers customized Linux platforms tailored to our customers' unique specifications and security patches for discontinued Red Hat(R) Linux(R) distributions. For more information, visit http://www.progeny.com . NOTE: Progeny is a trademark of Progeny Linux Systems, Inc. Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds in the U.S.A. and other countries. Red Hat Linux is a registered trademark of Red Hat, Inc. Open Country, Progeny, and Progeny Transition Service are not affiliated with Red Hat, Inc. or Red Hat Linux. Open Country and OC-Manager are trademarks of Open Country Inc. All other product names, service marks, and trademarks mentioned herein are trademarks of their respective owners.