Kang yanwen, IBM Linux Director: no conflict between open source and commercial software

At this year's LinuxWorld China 2006 conference, the blue giant IBM announced that the mainstream software and hardware product lines officially provided comprehensive authentication support for Asianux Linux. Before that, IBM only provided comprehensive support for Novell and RedHat.

As a milestone in Asia's open-source software, why was Asianux recognized by IBM? Will IBM also support Linux vendors in China? What are the real processes of Hongqi's cooperation with IBM? How does IBM look at the conflicts between open-source software and commercial software? A few days ago, with these questions, the reporter interviewed Kang yanwen, Business Director of Linux software in the Asia Pacific region of IBM software group.

Reporter: How much investment does IBM need to provide comprehensive certification support for a Linux manufacturer?
Kang yanwen: indeed, it takes a lot of money to authenticate a Linux, and such financial support is a long-term support. Specifically, DB2 9 needs to support such Linux, so does DB2 9.1 need to support such Linux? The answer is yes, and the related funds also need to be constantly invested, which requires resources such as money, human needs, equipment, and time. It is precisely for this reason that IBM cannot support each type of Linux. IBM can only support the promising Linux types in the market.

If you support a vendor, It is not supported in my mouth, or a project that I support. This is because I talk about the market. In terms of quantity, we cannot support a lot. This is definitely a realistic consideration. I want to support a little more, and there may be no way to support it.

Reporter: Why is Asianux selected?
Kang yanwen: IBM has plenty of reasons to authenticate Asianux Linux. Asianux is a platform jointly built by Hongqi, Hansoft, and Miracle, Japan, and South Korea, with good market acceptance. For the reason why we chose Asianux, I would like to put it simply by our acceptance of our customers and the development of the red flag in the future, this decision can be made only when we are very optimistic about the development of Asianux Linux.

Reporter: What new opportunities do you think the IBM-certified Asianux Linux brings?
Kang yanwen: the cooperation between IBM and Asianux Linux will be comprehensive. In the long run, IBM's user application Asianux Linux also has a large number of software, but this is not enough. It also requires a large number of ISVs to develop more and better applications based on Asianux Linux. In addition, IBM and Asianux Linux will also cooperate in terms of services, so that vendors in the industry can also have new opportunities to provide services. Users are not familiar with the overall solutions of Asianux Linux and IBM. If training is required, the vendors that provide training in the industry will also have a new market. It is important that the original system may be a proprietary system. ISVs cannot obtain the source code, and some developers cannot do it. The source code is open source now, ISVs, service providers, and training providers can provide services from a new perspective. It can be said that some new opportunities are being presented to industry vendors.

DB2 and Tivoli can all run on Asianux Linux. If you are not familiar with this new combination, the opportunity for training providers will come. The promotion of open-source systems depends on more applications. IBM can help with this. Open-source Eclipse is a good choice. The size of this market depends on the number of open-source systems used by users. On the other hand, people's ideas may be limited to the server side, but now on the desktop side, Domino and Sametime7.5 can all run on Linux, and desktop will become a new growth point of Linux. From this perspective, can you figure out how large the new market is?

Reporter: how can we see the conflicts between open-source software and commercial software and the integration trend of the two?
Kang yanwen: there is no conflict between openness and business. IBM adopts a so-called balance strategy in software strategy.

In fact, IBM has used open source code to develop a lot of software. For example, the desktop middleware Workplace is developed with open source code. For a commercial company, there is no conflict between open-source software and business.

For manufacturers, more users can agree only when more open architectures are adopted. Open-source architecture will become increasingly popular with more applications. After the Open Architecture is adopted, users can use UNIX, Linux, and Windows, and the enterprise IBM provides more opportunities to provide AIX vendors, because all our software and hardware products support Linux, we have gained more opportunities. Therefore, business and open source are actually mutually reinforcing relations. (ZL)