Press Release

Press Release

Cable & Wireless Germany releases OpenPKG as Open Source

Cable & Wireless developed a new and unique form of cross-platform
software installation

Munich, January 11, 2002 - Cable & Wireless, the global
telecommunications company, announced the availability of the OpenPKG
1.0 software. A flexible and powerful software packaging facility,
OpenPKG eases the cross-platform installation and administration
of Unix software. Consolidating different vendor approaches into a
unified architecture, it serves system administrators of large networks
previously burdened by non-conformant systems. OpenPKG leverages
proven technologies like Red Hat Package Manager (RPM) and provides an
additional system layer on top of the operating system. With OpenPKG, a
new and unique method of software deployment took form.

Open Source software is gaining ground in the whole IT and
telecommunications business. Looking for long-term success, no
telecommunications company can ignore Open Source solutions. Therefore,
Cable & Wireless aligns itself with the strategies of its own partners
like IBM, Compaq and Sun. "Serving hosting customers involves using
Open Source software technologies, and OpenPKG is our contribution to
this growing community", said Ottmar Schipper, Vice President of Cable
& Wireless Germany/Austria. "We developed this product especially for
companies which install and maintain a large set of heterogeneous Unix
servers, for example other ISPs, software development companies or
telecommunication companies."

Applied across a variety of servers, OpenPKG can empower the enterprise
with faster package installation and simplified maintenance. A system
can exploit OpenPKG's logic to become more robust and free the
administrator to attend other matters.

OpenPKG is a software packaging facility for Unix computers, and
targets the major server platforms. Solaris, Linux, and FreeBSD are
fully supported, while NetBSD, OpenBSD, Tru64, HP/UX and others were
also tested successfully. While internally based on RPM version 4,
OpenPKG is a self-contained system with minimal dependencies (no RPM
pre-installation required), and installs itself by means of a tricky
bootstrapping procedure. OpenPKG eases and controls the management of a
large or diverse base of software across one or more of its supported
platforms.

Highlights of OpenPKG

* Based on Open Source technologies.
* Portable across all major Unix platforms.
* Minimum operating system intrusion.
* Minimum overhead in software packaging.
* Easy installation, updating and uninstallation of packages.
* Over 200 software packages available.
* Bundled with useful package pre-configurations.
* Support for multiple system instances.
* Abstracted run-command facility.

The idea behind

Ralf S. Engelschall, Team Leader Development, Cable & Wireless Germany,
and principal author of other successful Open Source solutions like
the Apache webserver's mod_ssl, expains the idea behind OpenPKG: "As
server software grows increasingly complex, we need a standardised
cross-platform deployment method which adapts to varying customer
requirements. OpenPKG satisfies this without compromising flexibility.
Additionally, there's simply less that can go wrong, because OpenPKG
takes the pain away from server administration and makes applying
upgrades or security patches a breeze." Christoph Schug, Team Leader
Hosting, Cable & Wireless Germany, adds: "Beyond this, we work more
efficiently with OpenPKG. Building custom servers is now a matter of
hours instead of the usual week."

OpenPKG is a project of the Development Team from Cable & Wireless
Germany's Application Services division, and is a mature technology in
production use. It is available world-wide from www.openpkg.org, for
free.

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About Cable & Wireless

Cable & Wireless is a major global telecommunications business with     
revenue of over £9 billion (US$14 billion) in the year to 31 March      
2000 and customers in 70 countries. Cable & Wireless' focus for future  
growth is on IP (Internet Protocol) and data services and solutions     
for business customers. It is developing advanced IP networks and       
value-added services in the US, Europe and the Asia-Pacific region      
in support of this strategy. With the capability of its global IP       
infrastructure and its strength in key markets, Cable & Wireless        
holds a unique position in terms of global coverage and services to     
business customers. For more information about Cable & Wireless, go to  
www.cw.com.