IBM Accelerates Open Standards Adoption in Emerging Markets; Unveils N

    Business Editors

    SOMERS, N.Y.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 16, 2005--IBM today announced it will open more than a dozen new development centers in China, Brazil and Russia in an effort to accelerate innovation around the adoption of open standards based solutions in emerging markets.
    The new Innovation Centers will provide developers and business partners with easy access to IBM's technical skills, resources, and business expertise to help them more easily build, deploy and optimize customized solutions based on IBM's open middleware and hardware technology. As a result, business partners can go to market faster, while reducing development costs.
    A shift is occurring in the marketplace, as governments in emerging markets such as Brazil, China and India continue to move away from proprietary technology infrastructures to Linux-based business solutions. Leading IT market research firm IDC estimates that in 2004, the Chinese government was the largest user of Linux, accounting for 28.2% of Linux server sales and 29.6% of shipments. The firm points out that the government plays an important role in the development of Linux in order to support China's domestic software industry and that the government not only actively encourages people to adopt Linux via policy, but is also leading the way by adopting Linux for e-government projects*.
    The firm also predicts that as the perception that open source software lowers the total cost of ownership continues to permeate the Latin American market, Linux will start to be bundled in open source solutions. In 2004, Linux reached an inflection point in Latin America and massive deployments of Linux began to be commonplace. In 2005, Linux adoption will continue at full speed in this region**.
    In support of this movement, the new Innovation Centers will serve as a resource to the broadest ecosystem of IBM business partners including venture capital firms, local ISVs, regional systems integrators and individual developers by providing them with education, technical resources and testing capabilities to help them be more successful in the marketplace with open standards-based offerings.
    "The adoption of open standards in Latin America is rapidly gaining momentum among our portfolio companies," said Richard Frank, CEO of Darby Overseas Investments. "Today's announcement from IBM's further supports the acceleration of open standards in Latin America. This shift in the marketplace is enabling our customers to build a more flexible IT infrastructure, go to market faster and more easily reach new global markets. "

    New Innovation Centers

    The new Innovation Centers will be launched in Brazil and China and expanded in Russia, over the course of the next three months. These centers are designed to help business partners develop, test and deploy solutions based on IBM's open technology infrastructure, and they complement the 25 Innovation Centers IBM already operates for business partners worldwide. In China, IBM's Innovation Center and Linux teams will be housed within Open Partnership Centers, providing business partners with additional resources to fully integrate Linux and IBM's open hardware and middleware into their own products.

    The scope of support includes:

    Hands-on technical consultants: providing assistance for migrating, developing and implementing open based solutions on IBM hardware and software.

    Performance and testing: Rigorous testing, porting and validating business application and solutions based on open standards across all platforms.

    Workshops and technical seminars: covering a wide range of technologies to help business partners keep development skills and technology advancements up to date and integrated into their next-generation solutions.

    Networking opportunities: meet with other IBM business partners via marketing and connection events and initiatives at the centers.

Landray (Shenzen) Management Consulting Support System Co., a developer of management consulting and related software, successfully built its knowledge management solution at the IBM Innovation Center in Shanghai.
    "As an IBM business partner, Landray has got support from IBM on every level, including marketing, sales and technical," said Yang Jianwei, General Manager, Landray. "The cooperation between Landray and IBM at the Innovation Center is a good example of this. The great support from IBM helps Landray develop quickly and steadily. We firmly believe that the cooperation between IBM and Landray will bring more value and lead to a great future."
    "Today's announcement is in response to the growing demand for open based solutions from our business partners and customers in emerging markets", said Buell Duncan, general manager, ISV & Developer Relations, IBM. "IBM is dedicated to helping accelerate the adoption of open standards based solutions. By investing in an open infrastructure, companies can compete more effectively, enter new markets and globalize faster with the ability to share business processes and interact within and among other enterprises."

    For more information, please visit ibm.com/isv.

    * Source: IDC, China Linux 2005-2009 Forecast and Analysis, IDC #CN321135M, February 2005.
    ** Source: IDC, Latin America Predictions 2005, IDC # LA1530 , December 2004.

    About IBM

    With 80 years of leadership in helping businesses innovate, IBM is the world's largest information technology company. IBM is a leading provider of e-business solutions and is dedicated to helping companies, business partners and developers leverage the potential of the Internet and network computing across a wide range of businesses and industries. The company offers a host of cross-industry and industry specific solutions designed to meet the needs of companies of all sizes. For more information on partnering with IBM, please visit: www.ibm.com/isv.

--30--NM/ny*

CONTACT: IBM Angela Sullivan, 646-598-6173 a1lee@us.ibm.com

KEYWORD: NEW YORK INDUSTRY KEYWORD: HARDWARE SOFTWARE INTERNET E-COMMERCE PRODUCT MARKETING AGREEMENTS SOURCE: IBM

Copyright Business Wire 2005