Deputy president of Red Flag Software Co Ltd, Zhao Xiaoliang, told China Daily that along with Japan’s Miracle Linux Corp and Korea’s Haansoft Inc, the company is planning an Asianux company in an attempt to drive adoption of Asianux into the south Asian market.
Asianux was established in January 2004 by Beijing, China-based Red Flag and Tokyo, Japan-based Miracle Linux, with Seoul, South Korea-based Haansoft joining in October 2004 to jointly develop Asianux as the core platform for their Linux distributions.
The three companies released version 2.0 of Asianux at the end of August, building on an estimated 30,000 shipments of version 1.0. The technology is distributed in the form of Red Flag DC Server 5.0, Miracle Linux v4.0, and Haansoft Linux 2006 Server and Server 64.
Asianux has quickly established itself as a key Linux distribution in Asia and has received the backing of numerous ISVs and IHVs, such as BEA Systems, Dell, EMC, Hewlett-Packard, Hitachi, NEC, and SAP.
It is also one of three Linux platforms supported globally by Oracle Corp (which owns 58.5% of Miracle Linux via its Japanese subsidiary), alongside Red Hat Inc’s Enterprise Linux and Novell Inc’s SUSE Linux Enterprise Server. While the platform’s success has initially been in Asia, the three partners behind it are eager to establish it as a global brand through tighter co-operation.
The China Daily report quoted Xiaoliang as naming India, Malaysia, Singapore, and Vietnam as core targets, and noted that the establishment of a joint venture would make it easier for the companies to coordinate the expansion of Asianux.
Xiaoliang added that all three companies would invest in the new joint venture but that Red Flag would definitely hold a controlling interest in the firm.
As well as Red Hat and Novell, Asianux also faces competition from Japan’s VA Linux Systems Japan KK and China’s Sun Wah Linux Ltd, which in March announced an alliance to develop a single version of Linux based on the Debian GNU/Linux package.
