[ Thanks to Jason
Greenwood for this link. ]
“The Register’s department of strange coincidences notes the
announcement of not one but two software co-operation initiatives
in Beijing this week. Today Microsoft announced the signing of a
memorandum of understanding between it and the Beijing Municipal
Government, while earlier this week IBM China and the Beijing
Municipal Government announced the set up of the ‘China-IBM Linux
Solution Cooperation Center.’“IBM worldwide seems to have chosen to be bashful about this
one, but it’s been released in China, and the start date for the
Linux Center was February 24th, three days ahead of when Bill Gates
himself was scheduled to sign on the dotted line. The Linux Center
is intended ‘to promote the development of Chinese software system
which has China independent intellectual property,’ which we take
to mean it will be working on Chinese versions of Linux software.
IBM’s Linux partner Red Hat may be involved in this, but if so the
company is also being shy…”