Taiwan aims to increase its NT$120 million software industry by a factor of 100 within five years by developing open-source or free products such as the Linux operating system, government officials said yesterday.
However, industry analysts are skeptical about the plans.
"The Taiwanese software market has only been a few million NT to date," said Ministry of Economic Affairs' Industrial Development Bureau Director-General Chen Chao-yi (
"Only 10 percent of servers use open-source software and hardly any computers. We aim to have 30 percent of servers and at least 5 percent of computers using open-source software within five years," he said.
By 2007, Taiwan's software market will top NT$10 billion from NT$120 million last year, and the number of companies developing new software will grow from 20 to 50 in the same period, according to Victor Tsan (
Tsan and Chen were speaking at a press conference yesterday to launch a government-sponsored Web site to promote open-source software development.
The site -- www.oss.org.tw -- aims to publish software code for Internet browser, e-mail, office, and database functions that companies can use freely to develop their own unique software programs which are then included with hardware products such as personal digital assistants (PDAs) and home entertainment computers.
"Open-source software is not just a market in its own right, it also feeds into many different hardware products, creating huge opportunities for Taiwanese companies," Chen said.
Most of those opportunities will be in China, due to the common language the two countries share, he added.
The world's largest software company, Microsoft Corp, does not publish the source code for its software, forcing companies to buy its products. In Asia, more than 90 percent of computers have Microsoft operating systems, according to International Data Corp (IDC) figures.
Open-source software aims to break Microsoft's virtual monopoly.
"We hope open-source software can grow because more competition is better for the industry," Democratic Progressive Party (Legislator Mark Chen (陳唐山) said at yesterday's launch.
But the Taiwanese may be underestimating the cost of developing open-source software, one expert said.
"A large investment has to be made to turn open-source software into an industrial-grade product," said Hiro Kataoki, a vice president at US-based chip designer NetSilicon Inc.
"It sounds great -- you get free stuff, but then you spend two years fitting the software into an embedded device," he said.
NetSilicon sells embedded devices -- chips with software already integrated -- to the manufacturers of printers, fax machines, digital cameras, office entry systems and similar products. The company specializes in open-source software to connect products to the Internet without the need for computers, and software engineers do not come cheap, Kataoki said.
Other analysts agreed.
"Taiwanese companies definitely have to spend more money than they expect on open-source software," said Nathan Lin (林宗賢), an analyst at SinoPac Securities Corp (建華證券) in Taipei.
"But there are many opportunities for smaller companies that concentrate on embedded solutions," Lin said, adding that Taiwan should concentrate on simple products and not full systems.
The open-software initiative rang even hollower with another analyst.
"I'm concerned about the government putting money into open-source software, because it will be a waste of time and seems more like a marketing strategy," said George Wu (
"People like the idea that something is free, but nothing is free," Wu said.
"Taiwan should concentrate on semiconductors and chip design," he said.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last