(Raleigh, N.C.) Red Hat (NYSE: RHT), the world’s leading provider of open source solutions, today announced that its leading operating platform, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, is driving further enterprise adoption of cloud computing. Building on the strong, long-term technology collaboration between Red Hat and Verizon Business, today Red Hat Enterprise Linux is offered as one of the first two operating system platforms available for Verizon Business’ new Computing as a Service (CaaS) solution.

Verizon CaaS is a new on-demand solution that enables business and government agencies to take advantage of cloud computing to control IT costs and improve operational flexibility. CaaS enables customers to manage IT resources, including server, network and storage, efficiently and securely, meeting today’s business demands.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux provides a reliable, high-performance, secure open source platform on which to base cloud deployments. Red Hat Enterprise Linux also offers over 3,000 certified software applications and is used today on millions of systems worldwide.

“Verizon Business is now delivering to customers what we believe to be the most comprehensive and secure cloud-based computing solution on the market,” said Michael Marcellin, vice president of global managed solutions, Verizon. “Verizon CaaS was engineered to meet the challenging security needs and performance requirements faced by enterprises and the Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating system is playing a big part as we bring this unique offering to customers around the world.”

“As a key technology partner in Verizon Business’ new cloud-based CaaS solution, we are excited to play a critical role in offering more opportunities for enterprises to leverage cloud computing models,” said Mike Evans, vice president, Corporate Development at Red Hat. “Red Hat Enterprise Linux is running many of the world’s largest cloud deployments today, and now the opportunity for open source cloud computing is extended to more enterprises with Red Hat Enterprise Linux as part of Verizon Business’ new CaaS offering.”

The Verizon CaaS solution, including the option of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating platform, is immediately available from Verizon Business in the U.S. and Europe and will be rolled out to the Asia-Pacific region in August. For more information, visit http://www.verizonbusiness.com/products/itsolutions/caas.

Red Hat will host the virtual Open Source Cloud Computing Forum on July 22, 2009, offering developers, vendors and customers the opportunity to present and discuss how open source software and standards will advance the development and value of cloud computing environments.

Red Hat, the world’s leading open source solutions provider, 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 five 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 applications, management and Services Oriented Architecture (SOA) solutions, including JBoss Enterprise Middleware. Red Hat also offers support, training and consulting services to its customers worldwide. Learn more: http://www.redhat.com.