Prudential Financial just started following Red Hat, launching into it with a 64-page research tome that notices that the new Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 (RHEL 3) distribution, which Pru describes as a "watershed release," "will work with 80% of the available hardware platforms, whereas the latest version only covered 30%. RHEL 3 will also support 90% of Intel servers shipped by major hardware providers, more than double the 40% capacity of RHEL. This release," the broker figures, "should dramatically extend Red Hat's addressable base of users." Red Hat is also telling Wall Street that it's seeing strong adoption of Linux from international governments and thinks the US will go that way eventually. It wants the channel to do 70% of its business, up from 30% lately.

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