In today’s world, going alone has few benefits. This is doubly true in the tech industry, as companies who do their own thing don’t just have to reinvent the wheel, but also maintain it forever after. Collaboration and partnerships are key to doing effective business, and a common meeting ground for such collaboration is open-source technology, according to Jim Wasko (pictured), vice president of open systems development at IBM Corp.

Wasko is certain that open source will be a disruptive force in the industry.

“A lot of people don’t realize that Linux is really the underlying engine for so many things that we do in the technology world. It’s … embedded into the automotive industry — if you’ve got onboard computer, which most new cars do, 80 percent of those are Linux,” Wasko said. “If you talk about web serving, websites, front-ends, it’s Linux. … And so all the new innovation tends to happen on Linux.”

Wasko spoke to Stu Miniman (@stu) and Rebecca Knight (@knightrm), co-hosts of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE’s mobile live-streaming studio, during this week’s Red Hat Summit Boston, Massachusetts, to speak about open-source efforts at IBM, OpenPOWER, blockchain technology and the open-source transition. (*Disclosure below.)

Key partners, strategic moves

OpenPOWER is a foundation based around IBM’s Power Architecture products, mostly for server and data center use. The foundation’s purpose is to open up hardware architecture. As it’s progressed, Red Hat Inc., a Linux provider, also joined the OpenPOWER initiative. Since then, Red Hat has become a key and strategic partner for IBM.

Working with Red Hat is a signal in the market that this effort is a good strategic move for the industry because the company doesn’t enter anything lightly, Wasko explained. Linux is the engine for many things in the tech world, and new innovation tends to happen on Linux.

“[Red Hat] recognized it’s an ecosystem worth participating in because it’s so disruptive,” Wasko said.

As to blockchain technology, Wasko felt bitcoin was a limited view of the possibilities. Hyperledger, an open-source blockchain, can be applied in many other ways. Wasko cited supply chains and logistics as examples. However, for a distributed ledger like this to work, the community has to support it.

“We’re taking both technology and business; you marry them together,” Wasko said.

At IBM, the transition to open source was not a simple thing. That debate, though, is long-settled. Across its business divisions, everyone uses open source, Wasko added. IBM expects the same to happen throughout the industry.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s independent editorial coverage of Red Hat Summit 2017. (* Disclosure: Red Hat Inc. sponsors some Red Hat Summit segments on SiliconANGLE Media’s theCUBE. Neither Red Hat nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE