IBM and Red Hat Promote Linux In Emerging MarketsIBM and Red Hat Promote Linux In Emerging Markets

Continuing a push to promote the use of Linux-based products in emerging world markets, IBM on Friday announced an initiative with Red Hat to jointly support third-party developers with technical resources, expertise, and implementation services.

IBM announced a similar agreement in March with Novell aimed at supporting product development around Novell's SuSE Linux and IBM platforms.

For use within both the Red Hat and Novell efforts, IBM has established 15 Innovation Centers across the world that will be used to provide developers with technical support. Included are centers are in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, China; Bangalore, India; and Moscow. A new center in San Paulo, Brazil is expected by year end, says Todd Chase, program director of IBM Innovation Centers.

The Red Hat and Novell efforts and Innovation Centers are part of three key initiatives ongoing at IBM, Chase says. Those initiatives are to support Linux and open standards, extending support to emerging markets, and supporting business partners.

"What we hear from our business partners and customers is that everyone wants to have alternatives to Microsoft's proprietary strategy," Chase says. "The open standards ball continues to roll and we are continuing to support it as best we can."

IBM says its growth in emerging markets, including China, Russia, and India, was greater than 25% last year, and represented more than $4 billion in revenue.

"We are seeing things like the Chinese and Brazilian governments actively backing Linux as their key operating system environment," Chase says. "We will work to provide the right servers, tools, expertise, and training to get our business partners on line and moving ahead with new products, based in this case on Red Hat Linux."

Last year, IBM provided support to more than 400 independent software vendors at its Innovation Centers, and through August this year has again provided support to 400 developers, Chase says.

IBM also is offering 29 new Linux skill-building tutorials for developers on developerWorks, IBM's resource tool for software developers.

Red Hat will provide software developers with copies of its Enterprise Linux with supporting documentation and access to the Red Hat Network. The company will also facilitate registration at the centers for Red Hat's Technology Partner Program to help the developers certify the applications on Enterprise Linux, and on IBM hardware and middleware.