The Planet Joins Linux Foundation

Leader in IT hosting sees Linux Foundation membership as a natural step to inform its cloud computing strategy

SAN FRANCISCO, April 19, 2010 – The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, today announced The Planet as its newest member. The Planet is a global leader in IT hosting and will participate in community initiatives and projects that support enterprise Linux.

The emergence of cloud computing and virtualized environments in the Web hosting industry has opened the door the Linux community to gain important competitive advantages. The Planet leverages Linux platforms to provide these services across its global customer base.

“Our new Server Cloud, which is in beta with more than 500 customers, has been developed on the KVM hypervisor included in the Linux kernel,” said Duke Skarda, vice president of IT and Software Development for The Planet. “KVM is the future of Linux-based server virtualization. As we continue to evolve and enhance the platform, our goal is to access the Linux development community to gain vision and insights on emerging technologies. More than 80 percent of our 20,000 customers and partners rely on Linux platforms to manage their hosting operations, so our membership directly supports their work.”

“The Planet is one of the world’s leading IT hosting companies, and their contributions to Linux are important to sustaining Linux’s business-class leadership,” said Amanda McPherson, vice president of marking and developer programs at The Linux Foundation. “We expect The Planet to be among the first companies to launch a large-scale public-cloud service on KVM and we applaud their foresight and vision.”

About The Planet
The Planet is the leading provider of On Demand IT Infrastructure solutions, hosting more than 20,000 small- and medium-size businesses and 15.7 million Web sites worldwide. Customers have the power to choose from the broadest range of hosting solutions in the industry, from dedicated servers, Managed Dedicated Servers, Northstar Managed Hosting and data center colocation, all backed by 24×7×365 support. With the best choice of servers, software tools and world-class service, backed by state-of-the-art data centers and an enterprise-class network, The Planet turns IT into a powerful competitive advantage that enables customers to grow their businesses. For additional information, visit www.theplanet.com.

About the Linux Foundation
The Linux Foundation is a nonprofit consortium dedicated to fostering the growth of Linux. Founded in 2007, the Linux Foundation sponsors the work of Linux creator Linus Torvalds and is supported by leading Linux and open source companies and developers from around the world. The Linux Foundation promotes, protects and standardizes Linux by hosting important workgroups, events and online resources such as Linux.com. For more information, please visit www.linuxfoundation.org.

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Trademarks: The Linux Foundation and Linux Standard Base are trademarks of The Linux Foundation. Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds.

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