Opening the Door to Emerging Markets

The “international” in IBM’s name has never loomed larger. IBM got about 65 percent of its revenue from outside the U.S. last year. Much attention has focused on Brazil, Russia, India and China (known as the BRIC countries) -- rightfully so since IBM BRIC sales climbed 26 percent last year, more than eight times the pace in the U.S., according to IBM filings.(See this Bloomberg story for more.)

But beyond BRIC, there’s a larger group of emerging markets ramping up their economic development. To spur innovation in emerging markets in Africa and central and southeast Asia, for example, IBM is extending Linux and open standards resources there.

This week IBM announced the opening of the IBM Center of Innovation for Linux and Open Standards in Kazakhstan.

The Center’s mission is to drive adoption of open standards and open source technologies in Kazakhstan, the central Asian nation that spans territory larger than Western Europe.

"Kazakhstan faces the ambitious task of growing and enhancing its IT infrastructure very fast to match the demands of a new economy," says Inna Kuznetsova, vp of IBM Systems Software, marketing and sales enablement. "Using open source and standards-based computing, Kazakhstan can avoid the pitfalls of an expensive, proprietary infrastructure and build a more flexible IT foundation."

The interoperability from open standards such as HTML for Web and information structure, and Open Document Format for office documents can help Kazakhstan better deliver goods and services locally, and compete with business globally.

This comes on the heels of IBM’s new software package in Africa that takes advantage of the rising popularity low-cost netbooks and Linux to deliver businesses and government a smarter way to work.

IBM offers Linux expertise and resources in emerging markets through its IBM Innovation Centers in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and other locations, such as the Cape Town, South Africa center, which opened earlier this month.

IBM hopes to bridge the so-called "digital divide" that exists among businesses in these countries, especially the growing base of mid-sized firms that are fueling economic growth. Linux is a perfect fit to encourage low-cost, flexible technology in BRIC and beyond.

(Pictured above: Astana, capital of Kazakhstan, where IBM is opening the new Linux Innovation Center. Photo courtesy of Inna Kuznetsova)

A Smarter way to work in Africa

Starting fresh has its advantages -- especially for emerging markets. There’s an enormous potential for growth in those markets without the burden of being tied down by an old or outdated technology infrastructure. Companies in emerging market have the potential to leapfrog competitors in more industrialized nations by being early adopters of new disruptive technologies, avoiding the pitfalls of proprietary IT systems and costly infrastructure.

Today IBM announced a new software package, part of IBM's Smart Work initiative, that takes advantage of the rising popularity of disruptive technology -- low-cost netbooks, cloud computing and Linux -- to make collaboration software and services more affordable to businesses and governments across Africa. With the IBM Client for Smart Work, IBM hopes to bridge the so-called "digital divide" in Africa and beyond.

IBM estimates that African governments could halve their IT licensing, administration and maintenance costs -- freeing up money for disaster management, education and healthcare. Businesses that could not afford traditional PCs for all employees can now use a variety of devices and low-cost software to equip workers with the ability to work smarter anywhere.

Arguably you could see this as a business software version of the One Laptop Per Child program that focuses on delivering organizations access to really inexpensive computing.

African organizations can get started today with IBM Lotus Symphony running ‘in premise’ on their netbooks, and then add the social networking features as the cloud infrastructure builds out in Africa -- which varies by country and city. With new high-speed internet access to East Africa, connectivity is improving.

IBM worked with South African entrepreneur and founder of Canonical, Mark Shuttleworth, on the offering. See Mark’s comments on the opportunities for open technologies in emerging markets in a video here.

An article in the Wall Street Journal quoted Venansius Barya Baryamureeba, Dean of the Faculty of Computing and IT at Makerere University in Uganda saying:

If IBM keeps its part of the bargain and provides cloud-based applications at affordable prices then this service will revolutionize businesses in Africa.

This initiative follows the opening of the IBM Africa Innovation Center in Cape Town last week . The center supports IBM's efforts to help grow the burgeoning local IT ecosystem and is a key addition to IBM's US$120 million, two-year market expansion investment in sub-Saharan Africa.

Watch this space to hear more about how emerging markets are turning to innovative approaches to equip their workforces to work smarter.