[Linux-aus] RE:women at the keyboard

[Brent Wallis]

Hi,

>Here's a little quip passed on to me by an insider at the NOIE 
>symposium regarding Ballmer's recent trip.

>Apprantly, when Ballmer met with Kim Yeadon (NSW Minister for 
>Information Technology),
>the Minister's staff had to convince the good Minister to abstain 
>from wearing his Tux lapel pin to the meeting. 
>Can you imagine the thoughts which would have been flying 
>through Ballmer's mind when the government 
>minister you are trying to conince _not_ to go with 
>Linux, is wearing the mascot? ;-)

*chortle* :-)))
I always seem to be sipping coffee when I read these sorts of
comment.....where's my hankie..:)

>My suggestion to you all is to consider this new marketing
>material that Microsoft is making available, and to analyse 
>it from the perspective of accuracy and proven implementation. 
>For instance, they say that are all for open standards and 
>document formats, but what percentage of their protocols and 
>data formats are open to scrutiny and re-implementation? 
>We need categorical evidence to show what the truth is. 

A thousand times "YES", all too often in the past, the community has
slammed our friends in MS without cause or justification.

Try this, (and I apologise to any our there who do this, but someone has
to say something).... Google for Linux Consultancies in Australia, then
make a list of all the web sites you find that make wild and unrelated
claims about MS, or even worse, that spend pages of HTML 
with the "MS are the evil empire and we will be mind melded with BG if
where not careful" You know, this does more harm than good.....and if
you read some of them closely, it is really just "self justification"
and ego getting in the way.

I truly wish some major consultancies would
rethink their take in this regard.....because it affects everyone. :(

I should point out that I have a marketing and merchants career behind
me as well as IT, which is why a lot of 
the rhetoric piques my interest and ....on going concern.

>If they are indeed starting to change their ways (cough,)
>then we should applaud the, If this is all a meticulous 
>projection and faux-Platonic shadow play, then we must 
>expose it, and quickly.

I really don't think we have to. In the end we are fighting the
"corporate government battleship"....let them spend big, 
let them go for whatever they like with M$.....there is
inter-departmental rivalry which should handle it for us. Rather than
try to turn the ship, let them just shoot at each other...we all know
which ones will win.

An example of what I mean is a quote from the Fin Review dated 19/2/03
pg 53 "Blue Skies Ahead for limited Linux trial" by Ben Woodward. Part
of their coverage of the NOIE.

Basically it is a piece about the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) and their
assistant director of computing, Peter Gigliotti's foray into 
Linux....there are a couple of significant quotes:

"....BoM's most successful work with Linux to date has been it's
PC-based cluster used to host some of the agency's web functions."

"It's working like a charm. We're servicing 13 million hits a day, which
is almost double what we were 
able to service before, and we're sending out with people retrieving a
terabyte of data per month...."

"The agency has been so impressed with the cluster that it is now
bolting together a second one in Brisbane so it can carry out load
balancing between the two systems...."

Mr Gigliotti's demonstrated acumen and foresight for doing this should
be applauded! The last sentence in the article states: "....the impetus
to deploy Linux was coming from the IT department's middle managers."

They do however, say that they are not really prepared to go full scale
with Linux because of a lack of suitable human resource, but that I feel
is just an issue that will be dealt with by time.

The highlights of that quote, for me are:
PC based cluster.
13 million hits a day.
Double what we could do before.
1 terabyte of data a month.
GNU/Linux.

That's all we need, more of this sort of comment. It's not creating ill
will, nor is it ego centric....it just is ... Articles like this
appearing in the Fin Review provides the credibility we have been
looking for.

Inter-departmental rivalry should take hold with a few of these sorts of
successes don't you think?

If the BoM has cut back costs, increased capacity to deliver and done so
without M$......well.....I think the wave is cresting ...it's time to
paddle a little and ride it.... :)

Rarely in my life have I seen opportunities present them selves in
business to cut costs, increase capacity and not do so by cutting human
involvement. 

This is economics at it's best....:)

BW