IBM (IBM) is planning a new initiative to help start-up companies in emerging markets such as China, India, Russia, and Brazil. Special emphases will be on open technologies such as Eclipse, Linux, and PHP.

The move is focused on helping to accelerate the development of open standards-based solutions. In 2004 alone, more that 400 developers a day joined IBM's developer networks in emerging markets.

A shift is occurring in emerging markets as the number of developers supporting open standards continue to accelerate. According to an IDC study, China and India will experience the highest growth in professional software developers by 2008 with compound annual growth rates of 25.6% and 24.5% respectively.

IDC also forecasts that the total number of professional developers, many who will be building solutions on open standards technology, will reach nearly 15 million in 2008.