Oracle Corp. and Red Hat Inc. are opening a Linux Enterprise Applications Porting Center in Singapore as a regional hub to help independent software vendors (ISVs) and system integrators in Asia Pacific.
The center is the first such Linux effort in Singapore and is the first such joint initiative for Oracle and Red Hat, said Mike Evans, Red Hat vice president, partner development, on Wednesday. The companies have jointly committed about US$13 million in software, training and resources for the centre, which is part of a long-standing partnership between them.
ISVs and system integrators will receive help porting, optimizing and certifying their products on Linux, as well as assistance with their Linux skills and access to the Oracle infrastructure running Red Hat Enterprise Linux, the companies said. That work should boost availability of third-party Linux enterprise applications and speed adoption of enterprise Linux in the region, Oracle and Red Hat said.
The center, located at Oracle’s Asia-Pacific headquarters, will focus on ISVs and system integrators in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, India, Indonesia and the Philippines, Evans said. After the centre has been up and running, the companies will evaluate whether they should expand in the region, he said.
“This should up the confidence level seriously in terms of enterprise, serious-business Linux use,” in the region, Evans said.
Resources at the centre include Red Hat Enterprise Linux and software development test beds; Red Hat Enterprise Linux migration services; support for test pilots and flagship users; and an Intel Corp. validation and tuning lab. Both companies will provide consultants and engineering resources.
The centre will begin accepting partner applications on Thursday, June 24. Hundreds of ISVs and system integrators have been identified in the Asia-Pacific countries the centre will serve, Evans said.
“We believe we can handle that kind of scale of number,” he said. “Some are going to be simple because they’ve already done a fair amount of work in porting and they just need help with validation, and others will need more sophisticated work and assistance.”
Additional information on the centre is available at http://www.redhat.com/solutions/leap and http://www.oracle.com/partnerships/linux.