Red Hat gets serious about government

Linux vendor Red Hat, which is delving deeper into attracting public sector customers, has created a government business unit.

Red Hat also said it has landed a new government customer: the US Department of Energy National Lab CIOs. Under the seven-year agreement, Red Hat Enterprise Linux will be broadly deployed at the agency's National Laboratories and Technology Centers.

The Linux company has been building up its base of government customers since 2002, when it launched its Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Other government customers include the Federal Aviation Administration, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the US General Service Administration, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the US Department of Defense.

Paul Smith, the Red Hat vice president heading up the government business unit, said in a statement: "Open source is a logical fit for government due to the incredible attention paid to [IT] standards."

Red Hat recently teamed up with the National Security Agency and open-source community to collaborate on a security-enhanced version of Linux, also known as SELinux.

Foreign governments are also adopting open-source technology.

Last September, Denmark's Ministry of Finance implemented an open-source project for its data exchange system. The agency cited cost in its selection of open-source technology over Microsoft's systems integration application, BizTalk Server.

And in 2003, the city of Munich, Germany, also defected. The government voted to switch 14,000 computers to Linux, rather than continue its multimillion-dollar contract with Microsoft.

Microsoft, meanwhile, also announced a public-sector programme today. The Security Cooperation Program calls for Microsoft to share information with government agencies on network security issues related to its software. The move as seen as part of the software giant's effort to blunt the appeal of open-source alternatives.

Dawn Kawamoto writes for CNET News.com