Demystifying the black art of Linux
Starting this week, more than 700 IT professionals will attend Linux education events staged by Novell and IBM in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Auckland. The vendors say their low-cost workshops will jump-start the exploitation of Linux in business beyond the pilot project, by demystifying the free operating system and exposing myths. These include a perception that Linux is complex and command-line-driven, difficult to use and understand, immature, hard to manage, not ready for important applications, has an unfamiliar user interface and requires people to do lots of retraining.
"I think many of these perceptions have come from lack of knowledge," says Novell's Asia-Pacific manager of partnership and training, Steve Martin.
"People tend to fall back on what they know and are comfortable with. We are giving them a clearer understanding of what Linux is."
