CHINA, South Korea and Japan plan to set up a joint venture next week to develop and sell an Asian version of Linux software products, a Beijing-based software company said yesterday.

The joint venture, called Asianux, will be formally launched at a news conference on Monday, said Chase Fan, market manager at Red Flag Software Co.

The other two partners are Japanese Linux vendor Miracle Linux Corp and Korean Linux software vendor Haansoft Inc, said Fan, who declined to reveal the details of the venture's investment structure.

"After two years of research, we have mature products and distribution channels," Fan said in an interview yesterday.

The three companies announced plans to develop Asianux, which is also the product name, in 2004. The cooperation was supported by government authorities and industry organizations in all three countries.

Linux is an open-source-code, low-cost operating system that claims to offer higher security than Microsoft's Windows, according to industry insiders.

Asianux, a Linux server operating system aimed at enterprise users in Asia, is already being used in the national education information system in South Korea and the national post system in China.

The Asianux standard could promote the growth of Linux in Asia, especially if it is used in big government projects around the continent, said Andrea Di Maio, a vice president at the Gartner research firm.

Asianux will also challenge rivals such as Microsoft Windows because of its low cost and accessible source code, Di Maio said.

Red Flag, Miracle and Haansoft will distribute Asianux, based on a core system with localized features, under their own brands in China, Japan and South Korea.

Besides Microsoft, Asianux's rivals also include Western Linux developers such as US-based Red Hat.


Source : Xinhua