ASPLinux and Black Cat Linux Team announce merger

Singapore - March 19, 2001 - ASPLinux, a company developing Linux distribution oriented for Russian market, and Black Cat Linux Team today announced their merger. Companies decided to combine forces on the development of Russian language localized distribution of Linux and hope that such alliance will strengthen the position of ASPLinux distribution in the market of operating systems and system software in Russia.

Under merger agreement, ASPLinux will acquire Black Cat Linux logotype. Merger company will be focused on further development of ASPLinux distribution that will join together the best features of Linux distributions developed independently by the companies. ASPLinux, Red Hat Linux - compatible distribution, will combine ASPLinux unique installation program, graphical ASPLoader, ASPDiskManager to repartition hard drive without data loss and advanced support of Russian and Ukrainian languages from both distributions. ASPLinux distribution will inherit Black Cat Linux distribution version number. Leonid Kanter, the leader of Black Cat Linux Team, will be in charge of development. Company ASPLinux will be providing support services for users of Black Cat Linux distribution.

ASPLinux and Black Cat Linux Teams are certain that the union of both teams and joining efforts will result in the creation of progressive, reliable Linux distribution that may become leading Linux distribution in the Russian market and will win recognition in the global system software market.

Currently, ASPLinux and Black Cat Linux teams are working together to complete the ASPLinux release version. Knowledge and experience of the integrated team ensure that ASPLinux distribution will have necessary and innovative features to meet growing expectations of their potential customers.

"We plan to create high quality Linux distribution quickly and effectively and to reach this goal we decided to unite our teams and work together", - said Maxim Tsyplyaev, Technical Director of ASPLinux. "Leonid Kanter and Alexander Kanevskiy, the creators of Black Cat Linux distribution, are outstanding experts in the world of Linux operating systems. Their experience is priceless for us. "

"We think that it is unproductive to work separately on the development of two different Red Hat Linux compatible distribution for the same market. We consider this a waste of developer efforts that do not contribute into effective development of national Linux distribution. A long and fruitful relationship with the ASPLinux team revealed that they are seriously working on the development of national Linux distribution and we decided to combine our efforts. "- Said Leonid Kanter, the leader of Black Cat Linux Team.

Company ASPLinux offering a comprehensive range of professional services including consulting, technical training, porting of existing applications to Linux from other OSs, developing software for Linux and embedded Linux solutions for custom hardware platforms such as consumer electronic devices, including porting Linux OS itself, if needed. "Our services are unique, and we are sure that we can find our way to the Linux OS related market in Russia and even become one of the leaders on the market." - added Maxim Tsyplyaev.

Currently, the company ASPLinux focusing their efforts in building strategic alliances with leading software/hardware developers and distributors, enters into partnership with educational organizations and state institutions, expands dealer and distributors nets.

About ASPLinux
ASPLinux Pte Ltd.- a leading software development company, delivers Linux-based operating system ASPLinux, and creates Linux-based solutions, which are capable to meet requirements to ISVs, ISPs, NSPs, HSPs, ASPs and Data Centres. The Official ASPLinux OS and related services are available directly from the company. For more information, visit the ASPLinux site at http://www.ASP-Linux.com.

About Black Cat Linux Team
Black Cat Linux Team - is the group of Black Cat Linux developers led by Leonid Kanter and Alexander Kanevskiy. The Black Cat Linux project is targeted on the creation of multipurpose Linux distribution that can be used for Internet/Intranet servers, desktop systems and multimedia systems. Black Cat Linux distribution features Russian and Ukrainian language localization and is compatible with third party commercial Linux distributions. According to Internet voting, Black Cat Linux is one of the most popular Linux distributions in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States. For details visit the company site at http://www.BlackCatLinux.com/.