Red Hat (RHAT) and IBM (IBM) have announced a global initiative to help accelerate the development and adoption of Linux-based solutions in emerging markets such as China, India, Russia and Korea.

The two companies will provide software developers around the world with technical resources, expertise and implementation services to help them port and certify their new applications on IBM software and hardware and Red Hat Enterprise Linux more quickly and cost-effectively. As a result, developers can more easily build standards-based solutions that won't lock customers into a proprietary operating environments, eliminating the need to rip and replace existing systems.

A shift is occurring in emerging markets as the number of customers demanding technology solutions based on open source and open standards continues to accelerate. According to an IDC study, industry sales of Linux servers surpassed the $1 billion mark in revenue for the fourth consecutive quarter, while in the second quarter of 2005 worldwide Linux sales grew 45%.

"Linux is taking off in different parts of the world and IBM is making an effort to empower ISVs to leverage the growing market opportunity by providing assets to develop or port applications to Linux on POWER platforms," said Todd Chase, program director, IBM Innovation Centers. "To date, we have enabled more than 1,300 ISV applications for Linux on POWER, and we expect to grow that number by 200 new applications per quarter. This collaboration with Red Hat will help the ISV community worldwide test and certify their applications at IBM Innovation Centers for Red Hat Enterprise Linux on IBM platforms, expanding customer choice to deploy affordable Linux-based applications in their existing environments."