A senior official of a world leading IT company said recently that open source technology stands as a significant opportunity for China's development.

Crawford Beveridge, vice president of Sun Microsystems Inc. (NASDAQ: JAVA), said that open source software, the source of which can be used, modified and published by public, and other open IT standards are cheaper, more stable and flexible and are new ways to ensure local and sustained growth.

Its characteristic of openness can prompt the creation of indigenous innovative companies, regardless of macroeconomic or other international challenge, Beveridge said.

He said that the network growth makes people realize the possibility and potentiality of a real business model built on the open principle. The vice president said Sun would look forward to supporting China in this aspect.

Statistics showed that open source technology has been extensively received in South America, with 73 percent of corporate users in Brazil and 42 percent of such users in Argentina.

European countries are also joining this trend with their governments and official agencies more likely preferring to use open standards and open source solutions.

The rising of open source technology has taken over big market shares from its competitors, such as Oracle, Microsoft and IBM, all of which run against open source accessibility. Some experts say that open source technology has virtually introduced a more democratic way to technological development.