SINGAPORE : There are signs that open source technologies are seeing greater usage, says Matthew Szulik, CEO of Red Hat, the world's leading open source and Linux provider.

But he says broader adoption will only come with greater awareness about open source software development.

Red Hat says there are signs that open source operating systems are gaining ground on proprietary ones such as Microsoft's Windows.

One of Red Hat's key partners Oracle recently announced that it is offering to support Linux at lower prices while Microsoft unveiled a tie-up with another Linux provider Novell.

Matthew Szulik, Chairman and CEO, Red Hat, said: "When I saw the announcement, my first thought was that they must be having problems or concerns with Vista. Why else would they acknowledge Linux as a strategic platform to go forward. And therefore why would they work together with a partnership with Novell. So my sneaky suspicion inside of the government, beside the private industry enterprise market that they must have some concerns about Vista as an enterprise platform. We think there's good news. One they're making a clear statement that Linux is very important to the marketplace. It validates Linux but no doubt it'll increase the amount of competition."

Open source software is created and developed as a group and it gives users access to the end product's source materials - typically, their source code.

This allows developers to modify or improve the software and redistribute that back to the community.

Such a model can incorporate different agendas and approaches compared to a centralised development model typically used in commercial software.

Microsoft's Windows is the dominating computer operating system in the world.

But Red Hat believes that open source is making headway in Asia as a younger and more technically savvy workforce emerges and that is helping to attract investment.

Mr Szulik said: "The access to broadband and low-cost broadband is allowing many more participants of the open source community to join and to technically contribute. You've started to see very large venture capital companies open up offices in Asia and in other parts of the market here. The cost and the tariff structure that the governments had maybe five to seven years ago on computer hardware manufacturers are coming down. So you have a technically educated workforce, you have a young workforce that is understanding of the power of open source. And they'll want to be able to participate in building a digital economy. Those three factors are creating an excellent opportunity for investment."

In servers, global market research firm IDC predicts Linux' market share based on unit sales will rise from 24 percent in 2005 to 33 percent in 2007, compared with 59 percent for Windows.

On the desktop side, IDC sees Linux' share more than doubling, from 3 percent in 2005 to 6 percent in 2007 while Windows loses a bit of ground.

IDC expects the total market for Linux devices and software to grow some 26 percent a year to reach US$36 billion by 2008. - CNA/ch