• Retail Chain Installs Linux Desktop Software in 88 Stores for Easier, Faster and Affordable Point-of-Sale Transactions and Email Capabilities

BOSTON, Mass. — June 24, 2002: Ximian, Inc., the leading open source desktop company, today announced that Zumiez™, a retail apparel chain, finished its deployment of Ximian™ Desktop, the complete desktop productivity suite for Linux and UNIX users. The 1,200 employee, Seattle-based company completed the nationwide rollout in just six months and installed Ximian Desktop at each of its 91 retail locations to enable every point-of-sale computer to easily and efficiently perform spreadsheet calculations, manage email and browse the corporate intranet. Zumiez demonstrates how companies can cost-effectively capitalize on the desktop and productivity solutions from Ximian.

"We thoroughly researched the options available to us and chose the Ximian Desktop because it is a sophisticated system that allowed us to customize the desktop to our precise needs-those of a spreadsheet, email system and web browser," said Rory Hudson, retail systems manager at Zumiez. "Ximian Desktop and Ximian Evolution™ have resulted in tremendous time and cost savings for the company, especially in the ability to provide information to stores quickly and at less cost. On top of that, our employees have found the desktop easy to use and similar in look to what they use at home, which simplified and sped up the transition to Ximian Desktop."

Ximian Desktop is a complete desktop environment with a suite of applications including word processing, spreadsheet, web browsing, email and personal information management, and software updating. Ximian Desktop combines the core Ximian GNOME desktop environment with Ximian Evolution, a groupware suite for personal information management, and Ximian Red Carpet™, a software management and updating application, to provide powerful collaboration and software management for Linux and UNIX users.

"Increasingly, retailers like Zumiez are recognizing the many advantages of Ximian open source solutions for Linux and UNIX over Windows and other closed-source options, which include substantial cost savings, increased stability and the ability to customize the desktop to a company's unique needs," said David Patrick, CEO and president of Ximian. "Ximian is committed to providing companies with a complete productivity solution and Zumiez is a perfect example of how Ximian Desktop enables companies to successfully and affordably meet their business technology needs with Linux."

Zumiez, which provides clothing, accessories and hard goods for skate, snow, surf and other active lifestyles, is representative of a growing market for Linux desktop and productivity solutions beyond its traditional uses by technical, R&D and systems administration personnel. In retail settings, customers benefit both from the flexibility of Ximian solutions and access to source code, as they can optimally configure and customize machines to perform the targeted functions associated with data entry, web browsing and communications with headquarters.

For example, Zumiez uses Ximian Evolution to exchange daily emails with stores across the country and to maintain company promotional and planning calendars, Gnumeric to update operationally oriented financial information in corporate Excel spreadsheets, and a web browser for intranet access. Because Ximian Desktop is distributed under the terms of the General Public License, Hudson can access the source code, enabling him to limit the interface only to those applications and tasks he wants users to perform. The result is a tailored, cost-effective desktop solution.

Complete Productivity Solutions for Linux
Ximian Desktop is available for purchase in two versions, Ximian Desktop Standard Edition and Ximian Desktop Professional Edition, both of which are available for purchase on CD direct from Ximian at www.ximian.com. The Ximian Desktop Standard Edition, priced at $29.95, delivers a complete desktop environment and robust suite of applications, including word processing, web browsing, email and personal information management, complete with documentation and web-based technical support.

Supporting a broad range of leading Linux distributions including Red Hat, SuSE, Mandrake, Debian, Yellow Dog and more, Ximian Desktop Standard Edition combines the Ximian GNOME desktop interface, the Red Carpet software management and updating application, and Ximian Evolution, the leading email and personal information management suite for Linux. A host of third-party open source productivity applications such as the Mozilla web browser, the AbiWord word processor, the Gnumeric spreadsheet and GIMP image editor are also included. Ximian Desktop Standard Edition provides 30 days of web-based technical support.

Ximian Desktop Professional Edition, regularly priced at $59.95, adds the Sun® StarOffice™ 6.0 suite of Microsoft-Office-compatible applications for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations and more. Tight integration of StarOffice with Ximian Evolution enables one-click opening of Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint email attachments. Ximian Desktop Professional Edition includes 90 days of web-based technical support.

About Ximian, Inc.
Ximian is the established leader in providing open source desktop technology, applications, support and services for the Linux and UNIX marketplaces. Ximian products, in use by over 1,000,000 people worldwide, are providing the ease of use, productivity and interoperability needed to propel the adoption of the Linux desktop in corporate computing environments. Its Ximian Desktop software, based on the open source GNOME project, provides a complete graphical desktop environment and productivity application suite for Linux and UNIX systems. Ximian Red Carpet™ and Ximian Evolution™ deliver software and personal information management solutions for both end users and corporate customers. Comprised of many of the original architects of the GNOME system, Ximian is a founding member of the GNOME Foundation and sits on the advisory board. The company has secured funding from leading venture firms Charles River Ventures and Battery Ventures and can be reached at www.ximian.com.

Press Contact:
Kevan Barney
Novell, Inc.
Phone: (801) 861-2931
E-mail: kbarney@novell.com

Ximian Red Carpet, CorporateConnect and Ximian Evolution are trademarks of Ximian, Inc. Sun, StarOffice, Sun Microsystems and Solaris are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries. The names of other companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.