Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE: RHT), the world's leading provider of open source solutions, today announced that, in an effort to openly collaborate with partners to drive the future of virtualization, it has open sourced its SPICE (Simple Protocol for Independent Computing Environment) hosted virtual desktop protocol. SPICE is a core component of the Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for Desktops product that is currently in beta. Through the Spice project, Red Hat will collaborate with its partners and the open source community to expand the development of the protocol in an effort to help break down barriers to virtualization adoption.
A component of Red Hat's September 2008 acquisition of Qumranet, SPICE is an adaptive remote rendering protocol designed specifically for virtual environments. With its modern, high-performance communications technology, SPICE aims to provide a seamless user experience for today's bandwidth-intensive applications such as multi-media and VoIP, offering a user experience comparable to that of a physical desktop.
"By open sourcing this technology, we are allowing our industry partners and the community to contribute to the future of virtualization with us," said Brian Stevens, CTO and vice president, Engineering at Red Hat. "The SPICE protocol is designed to optimize performance by automatically adapting to the graphics and communications environment that it is running in, so vendors have a terrific opportunity to enhance it for their specific applications. Open sourcing technologies is at the heart of Red Hat's development and business model, and we hope that the ecosystem around desktop virtualization will now grow more rapidly and deliver more innovation to customers sooner."
"While open sourcing acquired technologies is only logical for Red Hat, the company is backing its release of the SPICE protocol source code as open source with supporting implementation code and components for server and client deployment," said Jay Lyman, enterprise software analyst with The 451 Group. "We're still very early on in the adoption of virtual desktop technology and standards, but an open source SPICE has real potential to build developer and ecosystem support and to serve as a common layer among different VDI options."
"Red Hat's delivery of the open source SPICE protocol is an important step toward the goal of interoperability for the industry's heterogeneous virtualization solutions," said Daniel Frye, vice president, Open Systems Development, IBM. "We look forward to working with Red Hat and the open source community to drive virtualization adoption forward."
"Devon IT is at the forefront of delivering multimedia through thin client solutions and is a strong supporter of the SPICE protocol using our thin clients," said Joe Makoid, president, Devon IT. "Open sourcing paves the way for an industry standard upon which Devon IT can help customers build valuable solutions. Devon IT is pleased to offer our leadership to help enable open source solutions that integrate into customers' existing environments."
SPICE is one of three main technology components included in Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for Desktops, a solution set currently in a private beta with general availability expected in 2010.
For more information on or to contribute to the Spice project, visit http://www.spice-space.org.
For more information about Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for Desktops, visit www.redhat.com/rhev/desktop.
For more information about Red Hat, visit www.redhat.com. For more news, more often, visit www.press.redhat.com.
About Red Hat, Inc.
Red Hat, the world's leading open source solutions provider and a component of the S&P 500, is headquartered in Raleigh, NC with over 65 offices spanning the globe. CIOs ranked Red Hat as one of the top vendors delivering value in Enterprise Software for six consecutive years in the CIO Insight Magazine Vendor Value survey. Red Hat provides high-quality, affordable technology with its operating system platform, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, together with virtualization, applications, management and Services Oriented Architecture (SOA) solutions, including Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization and JBoss Enterprise Middleware. Red Hat also offers support, training and consulting services to its customers worldwide. Learn more: http://www.redhat.com.
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- About Red Hat
Red Hat is the world’s leading provider of open source software solutions, using a community-powered approach to reliable and high-performing cloud, Linux, middleware, storage and virtualization technologies. Red Hat also offers award-winning support, training, and consulting services. As the connective hub in a global network of enterprises, partners, and open source communities, Red Hat helps create relevant, innovative technologies that liberate resources for growth and prepare customers for the future of IT. Learn more at http://www.redhat.com.
- Forward-Looking Statements
Certain statements contained in this press release may constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements provide current expectations of future events based on certain assumptions and include any statement that does not directly relate to any historical or current fact. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors, including: risks related to delays or reductions in information technology spending; the effects of industry consolidation; the ability of the Company to compete effectively; the integration of acquisitions and the ability to market successfully acquired technologies and products; uncertainty and adverse results in litigation and related settlements; the inability to adequately protect Company intellectual property and the potential for infringement or breach of license claims of or relating to third party intellectual property; the ability to deliver and stimulate demand for new products and technological innovations on a timely basis; risks related to data and information security vulnerabilities; ineffective management of, and control over, the Company’s growth and international operations; fluctuations in exchange rates; and changes in and a dependence on key personnel, as well as other factors contained in our most recent Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q (copies of which may be accessed through the Securities and Exchange Commission’s website at http://www.sec.gov), including those found therein under the captions "Risk Factors" and "Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations". In addition to these factors, actual future performance, outcomes, and results may differ materially because of more general factors including (without limitation) general industry and market conditions and growth rates, economic and political conditions, governmental and public policy changes and the impact of natural disasters such as earthquakes and floods. The forward-looking statements included in this press release represent the Company’s views as of the date of this press release and these views could change. However, while the Company may elect to update these forward-looking statements at some point in the future, the Company specifically disclaims any obligation to do so. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing the Company’s views as of any date subsequent to the date of this press release.
