The New BSDi to Offer Technical Support for the FreeBSD Operating System

FreeBSD Aims for Broad Acceptance Beyond High-Traffic Internet Sites

Comdex, April 18, 2000 - Berkeley Software Design, Inc., (BSDi) the world's leading supplier of advanced Internet operating system technology for the Internet infrastructure, today announced it is offering its renowned BSDi Technical Support for the FreeBSD operating system.

BSDi will begin offering technical support contracts for FreeBSD beginning in May 2000. BSDi technical support contracts include support for installation, patches, kernel tuning, hardware compatibility, administration commands, and others. These programs are available in a variety of plans, from per-incident to annual and 24x7 contracts.

"BSDi's technical support services bring to the FreeBSD open source community the highest level of support services backed and delivered by a well known, commercial company," said Jordan Hubbard, chief evangelist of the FreeBSD Project. "FreeBSD users will now have a single, comprehensive source of support that so far has not been available to them. This ultimately signifies broad acceptance of FreeBSD technology in the mainstream corporate arena, beyond such high traffic Internet sites as Yahoo! and Hotmail that FreeBSD typically runs."

"BSDi's recent pledge to back the BSD community is evident in this commitment to provide technical support for FreeBSD," said Gary J. Johnson, chief executive officer of BSDi . "We are committed to reliable, responsive support so that BSD-based operating systems can be effectively used by the widest possible audience."

BSDi operates the world's largest and busiest open source portal site, freesoftware.com, as a resource for the open source community. BSDi also develops, maintains, delivers and supports its advanced BSD® Internet operating system BSD/OS™ and associated product lines. The company is providing the open source FreeBSD Project with initial technologies and backing.

About BSDi Technical Support

Customers rely on BSDi Technical Support to broadly and efficiently deploy BSD-based operating systems into mission-critical computing environments. BSDi customers can call the BSDi services line at 800-487-2738, email BSDi at support@BSDi .com, or submit a request via the Web at www.bsdi.com/services/support/request. BSDi Technical Support is available Monday through Friday, from 9am to 5pm Mountain Standard Time and also in 24X7 time. BSDi 's technical support team will help users install the software and configure the services as outlined in the release notes. BSDi can help users with core operating system commands and general system administration and can also lend advice on basic kernel tuning and rebuilding the kernel from objects or source.

Availability

BSDi Technical Support for FreeBSD will be available in mid-May 2000. Prices for basic email support programs begin at $500. For clients wanting faster response times or additional help, BSDi offers Gold and Platinum Technical Support packages starting at $3500.

About the FreeBSD Project

FreeBSD is a popular open source operating system developed by the FreeBSD Project and its worldwide team, consisting of more than 5,000 developers funneling their work to 200 "committer" developers. It is available free of charge from ftp.freebsd.org and also distributed as a shrink-wrapped software product through CompUSA, Fry's, Borders, Ingram, BEST Buy, FreeBSDmall.com and others. FreeBSD includes thousands of ported applications, including the most popular Web, Internet and E-mail applications. FreeBSD is distributed under the Berkeley Software Distribution license, which means that it can be freely copied, modified and redistributed. For more information about the FreeBSD Project, visit http://www.freebsd.org/.

About Berkeley Software Design, Inc. (BSDi)

Leading BSD developers founded Berkeley Software Design, Inc. in 1991 to commercialize BSD technologies and to continue the Berkeley Unix tradition of robust, reliable and extremely secure Internet operating systems for network computing. By merging Berkeley Software Design, Inc. and Walnut Creek CDROM, BSDi has become the world's leading supplier of advanced Internet operating systems for the Internet infrastructure. Contact BSDi at info@bsdi.com or at http://www.bsd.com/ or call
1-719-593-9445 (toll free: 1-800-800-4273).

BSD is a registered trademark and BSD/OS and BSDi are trademarks of Berkeley Software Design, Inc. All trademarks mentioned in this document are the property of their respective owners.