linux in China

Developer News
August 11, 2004
China Gets a Linux Boost
By Sean Michael Kerner


The world's most populous country is set to become another center of  
gravity for
the Linux universe.

Members of Open Source Development Labs (OSDL) -- home to Linux founder  
Linus
Torvalds -- announced on Wednesday the establishment of its first  
office in
China in the city of Beijing. The goal is use the office as a hub in the
Asia-Pacific region to further Linux adoption and advocacy. Beaverton,
Ore.-based OSDL also has facilities elsewhere in the U.S and Japan. The  
effort
has the backing of the Chinese Ministry of Information Industry (MII)  
and the
Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST).

"China is a leader in embracing Linux," said Stuart Cohen, CEO of OSDL  
in a
statement. "The government is promoting Linux, a vibrant local software
industry is blossoming around Linux, and the world's leading IT firms  
are
investing heavily to deliver Linux-based computing solutions to Chinese
customers. OSDL is committed to helping all of these groups to advance  
Linux in
China."

Not that it comes as a surprise to anyone in the Linux community, but  
analyst
firm IDC forecasts the market for Linux in China is growing at a faster  
rate
than any other operating system including Microsoft Windows.

"Although the Linux OS market only represented a small portion of the  
total
operating system and subsystem market in China, Linux OS will maintain
above-average growth compared to the overall OS growth rate in China,"  
Jenny
Jin, software analyst for IDC China wrote in a July 2004 report titled,  
"China
Linux 2004-2008 Forecast and Analysis."

"IDC predicts that the development of Linux in China will have strong  
growth
starting in 2004. The Linux market will continue to grow at a faster  
rate than
the rest of operating environments industry, including Windows, for the  
next
few years," the IDC analyst wrote.

Statistics cited by the OSDL from Chinese IT research firm CCID  
Consulting show
that the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) for the Linux server  
software
market will grow to 49.3 percent over the next five years.

Linux vendor, Turbolinux claimed in a recent press release that it is  
the
primary distributor of Linux server operating systems in China based on  
IDC
statistics. The Japanese-based software vendor said in 2003 Turbolinux  
held a
60.8 percent share of Linux server revenue and a 60.7 percent of Linux  
OS
shipments. Nearly 40 percent of Turbolinux's direct sales shipments  
were made
to the government of the People's Republic of China. In June,  
Turbolinux inked
a deal with the China Ministry of Railways to deploy its Linux OS.

The Chinese government is also working on expanding Linux adoption  
through its
involvement with Red Flag Software and the nascent Asianux  
distribution, which
was originally announced in January of this year. Oracle's China  
Development
Center in Beijing is handling the Asianux effort, which is a joint  
effort
between Red Flag Software and Japan's Miracle Linux. At its Shanghai  
OpenWorld
Conference last month, Oracle announced that it was the first to be  
certified
on the Asianux platform and also bumped it up to its top tier  
world-class Linux
support program.

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