What does this mean for you?
According to the IDC Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan) Application Deployment Platform Forecast, 2002 - 2006, WebSphere is the number one application server in Asia Pacific. In Asia Pacific, according to IDC, WebSphere led in the application server software platform market as well as the integration server software platform market in Asia Pacific in 2002.

The Red Flag distribution may well wind up being one of the most serious operating systems out there. For now, you can download your own copy from the Red Flag Web site (at http://www.redflag-linux.com/eindex.html). According to Linux Business Week, Red Flag has 10,000 engineers working on the operating system.

When Sam Greenblatt, the chief architect of Computer Associates' Linux Technology Group, visited China's Institute of Software and Academy of Sciences, he came back with the impression that the operating system will be a "non-issue, totally unbreakable and bulletproof, in six years so that no one will have to worry about it."

If you're a U.S. WebSphere user, there's no specific actions you need to take regarding this news. However, we're seeing more and more indications of true globalization (not just the words, but real working code), in both the operating systems as well as server applications areas. If you're a WebSphere aftermarket supplier, you might want to brush up on your international language skills, because you may have some lucrative localizing to do.

Diane Poremsky is the president of CDOLive LLC and a Microsoft Outlook MVP. She's author of Teach Yourself Outlook 2003 in 24 Hours (Sam's, 2003) and coauthor of OneNote 2003 for Windows (Visual QuickStart Guide). For questions or suggestions for future columns, write her at outlook@cdolive.com.