"Linux Professional Institute And UnitedLinux Join Forces To Create New UnitedLinux Professional Certification Program"

 Linux Professional Institute And UnitedLinux Join Forces To Create 
         New UnitedLinux Professional Certification Program

NEW YORK - Jan. 22, 2003 - The Linux Professional Institute (LPI) 
(www.lpi.org), the premier professional certification program for 
the Linux community, and UnitedLinux LLC (www.unitedlinux.com), an 
industry initiative to streamline Linux development and 
certification around a global, uniform distribution, have signed a 
cooperative agreement to market a UnitedLinux professional 
certification program.

Under the memorandum of understanding, LPI and UnitedLinux will 
work jointly to create new UnitedLinux specific exams, which, when 
passed together with the current LPI Levels 1 and 2 exams, will 
lead to two new UnitedLinux certifications. The new exams are 
expected to be available during the first quarter of 2003: 

  - LPI's current Level 1 program (101 and 102), with the addition 
    of a 103 UnitedLinux-specific exam, will result in a 
    UnitedLinux Certified Professional (ULCP) certification.

  - The existing LPI Level 2 program (201 and 202), with the 
    addition of a 203 UnitedLinux-specific exam, will result in a 
    UnitedLinux Certified Expert (ULCE) certification.

"This agreement solidifies our vendor-neutral position within the 
Linux community and demonstrates the value of our program as a 
foundation for organizations like UnitedLinux to use to build 
their own certification programs," said LPI's president Evan 
Leibovitch. "Our agreement also shows the open source community 
working together to achieve collective success. We look forward to 
helping create future industry recognition and provide an 
organizational path for IT professionals."

"Partnering with LPI will offer UnitedLinux adopters access to 
high-quality professional resources, so that they can deploy 
products powered by UnitedLinux with confidence," said Paula 
Hunter, general manager of UnitedLinux. "Our agreement with LPI 
compliments the training programs our founding members will offer 
to the marketplace."

LPI's mandate is to design and deliver a certification program 
from within the Linux community, using both volunteer and 
professional resources. Linux certification topped the list of 
certifications expected to rise in importance most quickly, 
according to the 2002 CRN Certification study. LPI has also been 
selected as the winner, for the second consecutive year, of the 
Linux Journal's annual Editors' Choice Awards in the Training and 
Certification category. LPI has delivered over 20,000 Level 1 and 
Level 2 certification exams globally in just two years since the 
program's inception.

Founding companies of UnitedLinux are Linux industry leaders 
Conectiva S.A., The SCO Group (NASDAQ:SCOX), SuSE Linux AG, and 
Turbolinux, Inc. UnitedLinux Version 1.0, released in November, is 
the engine that powers products sold by the four companies, each 
with its own value-add features, services and pricing.  

About Linux Professional Institute
The Linux Professional Institute (LPI) develops professional 
certification for the Linux operating system independent of 
software vendors or training providers. Established as an 
international non-profit organization in 1999 by the Linux 
community, LPI develops accessible, internationally recognized 
certification programs, which have earned the respect of vendors, 
employers and administrators. LPI's activities involve hundreds of 
volunteers and professionals throughout the world in many 
different capacities, and the group encourages active public 
involvement through mailing lists and its website at www.lpi.org. 
LPI's multi-level program of exams is administered globally 
through Virtual University Enterprises (VUE) and Prometric testing 
centers. LPI's major financial sponsors are Platinum Sponsors IBM 
(NYSE:IBM), Linuxcare, Maxspeed, The SCO Group (NASDAQ:SCOX), SGI 
(NYSE:SGI), SuSE Linux AG and TurboLinux, as well as Gold Sponsors 
Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HPQ) and Wave Technologies.

About UnitedLinux 
UnitedLinux is a partnership of industry-leading Linux companies 
combining their intellectual property, geographic mind share, 
sales, support and marketing expertise to produce a uniform 
distribution of Linux designed for business. UnitedLinux applies 
the collaborative development model of open source to the business 
model to enable a one-stop shop for developers, partners and 
customers to install, support and maintain quality business 
solutions based on Linux anywhere in the world. UnitedLinux is 
actively recruiting membership for both industry software 
developers and those who provide Linux as an integral part of 
their business solutions. For more information, visit 
http://www.unitedlinux.com or call UnitedLinux at +1-781-876-8989.

###
Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. All other 
trademarks and service marks are the property of their respective 
owners.

For additional information:
Margot Rodger 
UnitedLinux
781-876-6299
mrodger@virtualmgmt.com