IBM (NYSE: IBM) today opened a Linux innovation center in the capital city of the Republic of Kazakhstan.

The mission of the IBM Center of Innovation for Linux and Open Standards is to drive the development and adoption of open standards and open source technologies among businesses and government organizations of Kazakhstan. The Center will help local software developers increase their Linux and open standards expertise and better connect them to the worldwide Linux community.

"Like many emerging markets, Kazakhstan faces the ambitious task of growing and enhancing its IT infrastructure very fast to match the demands of a new economy," said Inna Kuznetsova, vice president of Systems Software, marketing and sales enablement. "Using open source and standards-based computing, Kazakhstan can avoid the pitfalls of an expensive, proprietary infrastructure and build a more flexible IT foundation to expedite economic development. The Linux center will deliver educational and practical resources to bolster open source adoption and spur innovation.

The initial key projects and initiatives of the Center include:

• Providing support to regional ISVs and IBM business partners to localize major worldwide applications and ensure availability of key local applications on Linux;
• Developing prototypes of e-government services and other government projects based on Linux and open source;
• Developing e-learning solutions for the Kazakh system of professional training; and
• Promoting Linux and open source adoption in Kazakhstan and establishing closer and collaboration with the worldwide Linux and Open Source communities through Linux seminars, local events, speakers at IT conferences and exchange programs
  

The Center will help promote open standards that allow a variety of technologies to share information. Such interoperability will help deliver better goods, services and intelligent data. Open standards such as HTML, for Web and information structure; SOAP for Web services and SOA; and Open Document Format for office documents give businesses choice rather than limit themselves to closed, proprietary systems

The opening of the Linux center is an investment made under a broader memorandum on collaboration signed by IBM and Kazakhstan's government today. The goal of this collaboration is to accelerate the adoption of technology in Kazakhstan in support of the country's overall strategy of achieving sustainable development through economic diversification

IBM also offers Linux expertise and resources around the globe through capabilities available at over 40 full-service IBM Innovation Centers in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Sao Paulo, Brazil; Bangalore, India; Moscow and other locations, such as the Cape Town, South Africa center, which opened last week. The Linux resources available at these centers include

• Technical consultants to help build and test Linux applications;
• Linux workshops offered at no charge to increase skills and knowledge;
• Help in porting Linux applications;
• Remote access to Linux running on IBM System z;
• A virtual loaner program for secure, flexible, remote access to Red Hat and SUSE distributions; and
• Collaboration with Novell and Red Hat to assist in porting and optimizing applications on Linux distributions across IBM systems to meet certification