Linux more and more becomes an alternative for local municipalities and town councils in their planning of an efficient IT-infrastructure. This is the main reason why Novell GmbH, Hewlett-Packard GmbH and numerous independent software vendors have founded the initiative "Linux Kommunale" which, for the first time, creates a continuous portfolio of Linux-based solutions targeting the public administration and the offices of local authorities.

Main purpose of the initiative is, in cooperation with selected software developers, the porting of solutions for the office communication and special purpose applications (e.g. council registration, administration of public budgets and treasury, social functions) to, as well as the development of new applications for the cost-effective open source platform Linux. The Linux-Initiative is supported and sponsored by independent institutions like the MFG Baden-Württemberg and the Association of Cities and Towns of Rhineland-Palatinate.

By joining the initiative, APLIGO GmbH extends and complements the range of products - currently consisting of the server- and client-operating system, the backup tools and the office components from Novell GmbH and the servers, desktop-PCs, notebooks, thin-clients and the printing solutions from Hewlett-Packard - by so-called hardware appliances and all related technical and logistical services.

APLIGO GmbH, located in Karlsruhe/Germany, has been appointed the logistical hub and service-center for SmoothWall's hardware appliances in Europe. As part of its services, APLIGO handles the warehousing, assembly, logistics and technical services (warranties, RMA-management, NBD pre-exchange etc.) for the delivery of hardware to SmoothWall's customers and SmoothWall's sales channel in Europe.

"Our primary focus is software development, sales, and the related services required by our channel partners and our customers. When it comes to hardware, additional services, systems and processes are necessary; using APLIGOs as a service partner for this area allows us to meet customer expectations from day one without the investment in time, money and resources usually required." says George Lungley, Managing Director of SmoothWall.

"Our task is to ease our customers life and to take away the headaches when dealing with appliance (hardware) related services. Our customers appreciate that they do not have to re-invent the wheel and invest money in warehouse space, for developing the internal systems and processes and tying up internal resources. We are very proud to win SmoothWall as our customer for these services" says Marc Emminger, one of the Managing Directors of APLIGO GmbH.

Karlsruhe 11.03.2008 --- APLIGO today announced the launch of the new extranet which will greatly improve the convenience of dealing with the logistics of hardware and services.

Besides the "Warranty"-Module, covering the system for the registration of Appliances, the RMA-Management (where customers can register RMA-cases and view the status of open and closed requests) and the NBD-/(Next Business Day)-System in which NBD-keys can be registered, viewed and checked for validity, three new main modules have been added:

Karlsruhe 16.03.2007 --- The renaming to APLIGO shall support the company´s strategy to extend its position as an European Appliance Provider. "We see a continuously growing demand of European software vendors to enter the Appliance business. It is our target to allow software vendors all over the world a step by step and therewith riskless entry into the Appliance business. The new name, as well as our slogan "your software perfectly applied", shall express this in a much better way and superiorly copes with this claim", says Marc Emminger, Managing Director of APLIGO.