Red Hat partners with DICT on open source app platform

RED HAT, INC. has partnered with the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) on the creation of applications for the government using open source technology.

“The collaboration with DICT is something with regards to developing a community of ISVs (independent software vendors) and developers within the Philippines that can leverage on open source innovations and the way that we have discussed, moving forward, with DICT is to provide DICT with a platform, a sandbox platform comprising Red Hat technologies,” Damien Wong, vice president and general manager of Asian Growth and Emerging Markets (GEM) at Red Hat, said during the launch of the company’s Philippine office.

The said collaboration started this year and aims to create an ecosystem to support developers and the department’s goal to help them benefit from open source technology.

Mr. Wong said through this collaboration, the company will “create new innovations that is readily available for the Philippine government.” He noted that this is in line Red Hat’s goal to promote the propagation and development of the community.

One platform Mr. Wong said they will provide the government for free is the Red Hat Openshift container platform, a management tool used for virtual and private cloud infrastructure. This lets developers easily build, develop, and run applications in private or public infrastructure regardless of the app architecture.

For the government, this will help developers create applications that can be tested by different agencies across the government, making it easier to integrate innovation into the system, he said.

“We think it’s a win-win-win situation because the community gets a place where they can access world-class leading technologies. The ability for them to create applications that are meaningful for government agencies that are good for, of course, Philippine constituents,” Mr. Wong said

Juli Ana E. Sudario, officer-incharge at the DICT’s Government Digital Transformation Bureau, said this initiative of Red Hat will be of big help in developing applications for public service.

“There is a need for us in government and even those from the private sector who are providing assistance to government agencies, to be able to develop applications easily in a cloud environment. That’s why we welcome very much this initiative of Red Hat to provide that environment, wherein the developers can develop applications for government agencies,” Ms. Sudario said.

“That platform will also be made available freely to registered software houses for those who want to develop applications for government agencies, whether these are applications for the administrative or internal rules of government, and especially for those applications which would help them deliver their services to the public,” she added.

Founded in 1993, Red Hat is a provider of open source solutions and is headquartered in Raleigh, North Carolina. It provides services in areas like operating systems, virtualization, middleware, storage, and cloud computing. Its open source model supplies computing solutions in physical, virtual and cloud environments.

The company has been serving its Philippine customers offshore for more than ten years. With the launch of its Philippine office, which marks its fifth in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, it believes its services to the local market will be more stable. —