Red Hat, an open source solutions provider, has launched Enterprise Linux 5, an enhanced platform created in collaboration with customers to deliver additional value to the customers.

"We have been developing Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 for two years with our customers and partners driving the agenda. Their pain points were clear: they were unable to consume all of the technology being sold to them, and it was not solving their business problems effectively," said Paul Cormier, executive vice president of Engineering at Red Hat

The advanced platform enables mission-critical server deployments, as well as an updated Enterprise Desktop for user productivity. It allows the customers to reduce the cost and complexity of purchasing, integrating and managing separate virtualization, storage management and high availability software. It also allows customers to shift their investment away from costly infrastructure and back into their business.

The enhanced platform features additional performance, scalability and security, extensive new hardware support, expanded development environment and toolset, improved interoperability between Microsoft Windows and Unix.