[Ubuntu Urdu] IBM Helps NIIT to Establish Linux Competency Center(in Pakistan)

[Fouad Riaz Bajwa]

Forwarded for information by Fouad Riaz Bajwa

IBM Helps NIIT to Establish Linux Competency Center
http://www.ibm.com/news/pk/en/2007/06/news_06Jun2007.html 
 
  Islamabad, June 6, 2007 - Today, IBM announced the opening of a Linux
Competency Center which it has donated to NUST Institute of Information
Technology (NIIT) http://www.niit.edu.pk, Rawalpindi. This Linux Competency
Center will help customers, students, developers and business partners in
Pakistan to experience and test Linux hands-on and to explore the benefits
of open standards-based computing. The Teach the Teachers program will span
several Universities and teachers will be trained at NIIT. In addition IBM
is extending its Scholars Program to offer free software, course material
and access to IBM Portals to major Universities in Pakistan.

As part of establishing the center, IBM has donated its range of enterprise
systems (including pSeries Unix Servers, Intel Processor-based xSeries and
BladeCenter servers, TotalStorage), Printers, PCs, CISCO equipment - all of
the hardware running on Linux SuSE deployed by IBM Global Technology
Services team. IBM will also provide free hardware and software services for
the first year. In addition, IBM Middleware software will be used by NIIT in
their curriculum for graduate and undergraduate students under IBM Academic
Initiative program.

"Linux is the Game Changer and IBM believes that open standards and open
source technologies are a key driver of collaborative innovation" said
Humayun Bashir, Country General Manager, IBM Pakistan.

"The open source competency center at NIIT will play a pivotal role in the
IT sector of Pakistan by training professionals in exciting open source
technologies." said Dr. Arshad Ali, Director General, NIIT.

Linux is the fastest growing operating system in the world (CAGR 44%
2003-2008) which runs on a variety of hardware platforms. It is the only
operating system with the characteristics of being non proprietary in
nature, resulting in flexibility for the technology enabled organization.
Linux is about freedom and not free operating system or free application
software. Linux's source code is freely distributed and available to the
general public without restrictions on use or requiring royalties. It can
save organizations significant amount of dollars compared to the use of
proprietary, licensed operating systems. Highly regarded for its speed,
reliability and security, Linux continues to evolve through contributed
efforts from developers worldwide and is being used across all industries.

Governments in many countries like Germany, China, India, Korea, Brazil and
many others have adopted Linux as the operating system to minimize
investment and centralize management. The Government of Pakistan is
committing itself to the reduction of piracy and the protection of
intellectual property. Linux and open source technology are the corner stone
of this initiative. Many multinational companies and leading banks like,
SCB, ABL, LMK Resources have already adopted Linux because of its
flexibility, openness and availability from a wide variety of sources.

IBM is a strong supporter of Linux and has taken various initiatives to
promote Linux - Open Source in Pakistan. IBM organized a Linux and Open
Source Conference in Karachi in 2005 which received overwhelming response. A
similar event was held in 2003 together with TReMU, a former unit of
Ministry of IT. IBM held worldwide Linux Challenge in 2002 in which two
winners were from Pakistani Universities and were recognized worldwide.

IBM has more than 300 software solutions on Linux and is shipping over 350
software products that run on Linux across its IBM DB2, WebSphere, Lotus and
Tivoli software families. IBM has worldwide invested $1 billion and
continues to invest several hundred million dollars annually to Open Source
projects. 

For more information visit ibm.com/linux