The nation's open-source software sector is expected to enjoy significant growth in the next few years, backed by strong government support and the interest of large information technology (IT) companies, a research institute said yesterday.
"The domestic output value of open-source software may grow from NT$13.45 billion last year to over NT$77 billion in 2006, due to a strong push from both the government and international big name IT companies," said Wang Kai (王凱), an analyst at the Market Intelligence Center (市場情報中心), at a industry seminar.
Open-source software, such as Linux, allows users to run, modify and redistribute software with the inclusion of the source code, and has been widely used and developed because of its low costs and high flexibility.
A group of IT companies, including IBM Corp, Dell Inc, Sun Microsystems Inc, Sony Corp and Samsung Co, have been devoted to developing open-source software since the early 1990s.
Taiwan also joined the trend and launched a Web site -- www.oss.org.tw -- in early October last year to promote the sector, as the government aims to increase its NT$120 million software industry 100-fold within five years.
Among various free software such as the Linux operating system, Apache Web server and Netscape 6 Web browser, Linux is expected to get a rapid boost this year when it is integrated with hardware, such as smartphones -- or cellphones that combines the functions of personal digital assistants (PDAs) -- with an embedded Linux system, Wang said.
Smartphones using the Linux platform are expected to hit the market this year, and will account for 22.2 percent of the output value of all appliances with integrated open-source software, he said.
Currently, Linux is most widely used as an operating system by countries seeking to reduce reliance in the US software giant Microsoft Corp's Windows platform.
For the first three quarters of last year, worldwide shipments of Linux servers are expected to exceed 2.1 million units, a 51.4 percent growth from the same period in the previous year, according to research firm IDC.
However, it will take time for open-source software to be widely adopted by corporations, due to the shortage of open-source software specialists, Wang noted.
Using the Linux OS as an example, Wang said the system had been adopted by 35.5 percent of public research institutions, but was used by only 3.89 percent of private companies.
While research agencies are interested in probing or developing open-source software systems, "most corporations are still reluctant to replace their Windows platforms, owing to the shortage of related technicians, as well as increasing substitution fees," Wang said.
Opening vocational courses for IT workers and bringing open-source software knowledge to campuses could be one way to solve the problem, Wang said.
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