Asian Linux Vendors Create Partnership to Drive Asianux

Published: January 31, 2006

by Timothy Prickett Morgan

The word on the street is that the three vendors behind the Asianux distribution of Linux--that would be Red Flag Linux of China, Miracle Linux of Japan (founded by database maker Oracle), and Haansoft Linux of Korea--will launch a jointly owned company called Asianux Corporation some time in April. According to reports, Red Flag Linux will have a 50 percent share of the company, with Miracle Linux and Haansoft each getting a 25 percent stake.

Miracle Linux and Red Flag launched their jointly developed Asianux 1.0 Linux in April 2004, and they added Haansoft as a partner and then launched Asianux 2.0 last August. Asianux is a standardized implementation of Linux with support for Asian languages and character sets. Asian languages and character sets are difficult to support, and the commercial Linux distributors in the United States and Europe have not been as motivated to undertake this development. While commercial Linux distributor Turbolinux early on emerged as the dominant Linux supplier in Japan, that company had a rough time financially in recent years. But it is still a Linux player in the region and it is hard to believe that it doesn't want to play with Asianux in some fashion. The Asianux partners had planned to distribute the software under their own brands and will add their own features and services on top of it.

The establishment of a separate company called Asianux is thought to be a precursor to further expansion in the region, particularly in areas where local language support is problematic. Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia come to mind, and rumors have suggested that an Indian distributor might also join the Asianux effort. Time will tell.