Linux grabs big win with Reuters

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“Reuters will announce plans Thursday to bring its financial information software to Linux in conjunction with Red Hat, Intel and Hewlett-Packard, sources said, a major achievement for the comparatively young open-source operating system,” says News.com.

(Click “Read More” for full text of original press release.)

San Francisco – Reuters, the global information, news and technology group, has formed an alliance with HP, Intel Corporation and Red Hat to make Reuters Market Data System (RMDS) available on Intel-based servers with Linux, the open source operating system. The move supports financial institutions using Intel® Architecture (IA) and Linux to reduce the cost and improve the flexibility and performance of their market data platforms.

Reuters decision to run RMDS on Linux comes in response to a growing interest and deployment of the operating system within the financial services industry. Tom McDonald, Executive Director at Morgan Stanley said, “Linux on Intel is an important evolutionary platform for Morgan Stanley. Support for this platform from Reuters is important to our efforts and is strategic to Morgan Stanley.”

The four companies will jointly participate in the porting, testing and optimization of RMDS on IA with Red Hat Linux. The service will run on Intel® Xeon processor and Intel® Itanium® processor family-based servers from HP. A version of RMDS on this platform is due to begin testing in the third quarter of this year.

Reuters Consulting, working with HP Services, will assist customers to ensure its migration to Linux on Intel-based servers delivers maximum benefit. Services will cover a range of areas including initial review and application audit, development of Linux application architecture and migration, through to ongoing support.

RMDS integrates the crucial real-time data and news that a financial institution uses to make its trading decisions and interact with the markets. The system delivers information to thousands of users and applications throughout the financial institution and across the Internet. RMDS combines the best elements of the most widely installed market data systems, Reuters Triarch and the TIB Market Data Distribution System, while enhancing them with components that improve cost of ownership, scalability, and business flexibility.

Mike Sayers, Reuters Chief Technology Officer said, “Our customers see RMDS on Intel-based servers and Linux as an important way to reduce their costs of operation and improve their service, so it was quite natural that we should bring the two together. The support Linux enjoys from a broad range of hardware vendors also makes it an excellent fit with Reuters policy of open systems. We are pleased to bring the Linux version of RMDS to market first on the HP, Intel and Red Hat platform. Working with these industry leaders will ensure that RMDS on Linux provides the stability, performance, and integrity that our customers have come to expect from us.”

“As a premier provider of market data delivery systems, Reuters understands the critical role that leading information technology plays in today’s competitive and constantly evolving business environment. Reuters is focused on providing its clients competitive edge with global technology solutions that can evolve and adapt while managing costs,” said Peter Blackmore, Executive Vice President, HP Enterprise Systems Group. “HP is pleased to extend our long-standing relationship with Reuters to help them achieve these goals. By choosing HP ProLiant servers, the world’s market leader in Linux server unit shipments for 16 quarters running, Reuters can confidently introduce mission critical Linux solutions with the economic benefits of industry-standard computing.”

“Red Hat has technology and service relationships with eight out of the ten top financial companies in the world,” said Michael Tiemann, Chief Technology Officer at Red Hat. “Red Hat solutions provide customers a dramatic increase in the capacity and performance of their pricing and trading systems. This in turn has led to substantial increases in the need for financial data and analysis to fuel these systems. Through this partnership, Reuters has the opportunity to meet these increased demands while retaining the rock-solid quality that customers expect when using RMDS.”

Reuters
Reuters (www.about.reuters.com) is the leading global provider of financial information, news and technology solutions to financial institutions, the media, corporates and individuals. Reuters strength is our unique ability to offer customers a combination of content, technology and connectivity. Our premier position is founded on continuous technological innovation and a reputation for speed, accuracy, integrity and impartiality. Reuters has over 19,000 staff in 97 countries, including some 2,500 editorial staff in 230 bureaux serving approximately 150 countries, making Reuters the world’s largest international multimedia news agency. In 2001, Reuters had revenues of £3.9 billion.

Reuters and the sphere logo are the trade marks of the Reuters group of companies.

HP
HP is a leading global provider of technology products, solutions and services to consumers and businesses. The company’s offerings span IT infrastructure, personal computing and access devices, global services and imaging and printing. The merged company had combined revenue of approximately $81.7 billion in fiscal 2001 and operations in more than 160 countries. Information about HP and its products can be found at http://www.hp.com.

Intel

Intel, the world’s largest chip maker, is also a leading manufacturer of computer, networking and communications products. Additional information about Intel is available at www.intel.com/pressroom.

Red Hat

Red Hat (Nasdaq:RHAT) is the world’s premier open source and Linux provider. Red Hat is headquartered in Raleigh, N.C. and has offices worldwide. Please visit Red Hat on the Web at www.redhat.com. For investor inquiries, contact Gabriel Szulik at Red Hat, (919) 754-3700.

LINUX is a trademark of Linus Torvalds. RED HAT is a registered trademark of Red Hat, Inc.”

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