Red Hat, the world’s leading provider of open source solutions, announced expanded support services for key developing markets in the Middle East with the launch of a Red Hat Certified Support Centre.

The support services in the region are provided by Opennet in co-operation with Red Hat.

Opennet MEA has been a master distributor of Red Hat Enterprise Linux since 2002 and provides Red Hat training for most of the Middle East and North Africa.

"There is increasing demand for Red Hat's open source solutions in the Middle East," said David Allinson, general manager at Opennet.

"We are pleased to be extending our agreement with Red Hat, making Opennet the first point of contact for Red Hat support for all customers.  We'll be adding regional support services to meet this demand and appreciate our ability to work with Red Hat to quickly provide support services in local languages. Red Hat provides proven, high-quality open source solutions and the addition of local language support makes the Red Hat products even more accessible.”

Opennet will officially introduce Red Hat support services into the Middle East beginning in December 2007.

Support will be provided in the Middle East and North Africa including the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), Jordan, Lebanon, Oman, UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Iraq, Libya, Yemen and Egypt and will be offered in select local languages including Arabic, English and French.

Support will be available via local telephone numbers in each country. Calls for technical support logged to Red Hat will be directed by Red Hat’s system to the Opennet Certified Support Team for processing in local languages and at local times, and will then be escalated to Red Hat for upper-level support. Customers will also have the option to purchase on-site delivery of services from Opennet Certified Engineers or Red Hat consultants.

“Linux and open source software adoption is accelerating in developing markets such as the Middle East and local-language support is vital," said Werner Knoblich, vice-president and general manager of EMEA at Red Hat.

"Our expertise in Linux support, combined with Opennet local language support, ensures that customers will have access to the Red Hat Certified Support Centre, enabling them to migrate solutions to Red Hat and JBoss solutions faster."

Opennet MEA is the Master Distributor and Certified Training & Education Centre of Red Hat Inc. in the following regions and countries: United Arab Emirates (UAE), Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), Sultanate of Oman, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco and all African French-speaking countries.

Launched in 2003 in Dubai as head quarter for the Opennet Middle East & Africa operations, Opennet MEA aims to transfer its expertise on deploying Red Hat Linux to its covering regions by providing full range of consulting and professional services and assisting organizations and companies with the assessment, design and implementation of Linux solutions for ensuring high availability, reliability, performance, scalability and manageability within IT environments.