IBM has opened a Linux Innovation Center in Kazakhstan.

"Like many emerging markets, 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, IBM's vice president of 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 to expedite economic development. The Linux center will deliver educational and practical resources to bolster open source adoption and spur innovation."

"IBM is betting that places like Kazakhstan will eventually see growth as vendors spread their wares around the globe and local businesses move onto the Internet," writes VentureBeat's Dean Takahashi. "Linux is a perfect fit as far as encouraging low-cost technology in these areas. The center will be in Astana, Kazakhstan, the capital of the country. The center's mission is to drive the development and adoption of open standards and open source technologies in business and government organizations in Kazakhstan, the central Asian nation that spans territory larger than Western Europe."

More here from InformationWeek ... and the press release is here.