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Contents 
Introduction
From zero to support team
Closing the skills gap
The personal approach
And then there's the desktop
A strategy for open source |
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By all accounts, Linux is on a roll. IDC has projected Asia-Pacific Linux software license revenues outside of Japan will grow 78.6 percent from AU$8.46 million in 2004 to AU$15.14 million this year, particularly as software innovation improves available Linux-based tools and applications to the standard of existing rivals.
In 2008, IDC expects sales to reach 10 times last year's level, or AU$91.14 million on a compound annual growth rate of 82 percent. And revenue from Linux server hardware is growing at 22.8 percent annually, nearly six times the 3.8 percent annual growth of the overall server market.
Most companies' investment in open source software is likely to begin with Linux, which is typically used as a platform for both commercial and open source applications. By 2008, IDC believes such growth will increase open source environments from seventh to fourth place on the list of most popular operating environments, with 25.7 percent of all servers running Linux by 2008.
More importantly, the use of these systems is changing: sales of 2-CPU servers (appropriate for use in larger-scale computing clusters that support databases and other mission-critical applications) now make up 74 percent of all Linux servers sold, outstripping sales of the single-CPU servers typically used for less business-critical functions such as Web and file serving.
Such a changing profile reflects growing confidence in Linux, and indeed the move to open source has, in many ways, become a confidence game. For companies stepping into Linux for the first time, a positive experience with that environment will be critical before there is any corporate will to explore the myriad of other open source applications gaining traction. Most customers will expect and accept a few stumbles on the road to Linux, but an overly or chronically negative experience -- such as that had by Mackenzie's team -- will be like a bowl of ice water on their burning ambition to change.
This presents a problem for what has traditionally been a largely informal community of open source enthusiasts providing technical support to others out of the kindness of their hearts. Automation of many enquiries through online self-service can improve support marginally, but building a viable enterprise-class support operation is all about guaranteeing access to competent, reliable people. That, as every company knows, can be a serious problem in the case of technologies that have only recently entered the mainstream.
Red Hat Systems, the most readily identifiable open source company that brings Linux to the enterprise, has leveraged what was previously one of many Linux distributions into a massive growing services business, currently worth nearly AU$261.1 million a year. Red Hat just so happens to install Linux servers.
| "We've seen a massive change in the way we do support." Martin Messer, senior manager global support, Red Hat Asia-Pacific |
Since the provision of excellent support is a major part of its value proposition, Red Hat has had to quickly ramp up its support capabilities to sustain such raging growth.
"There was previously very little organisation in Asia-Pacific around support," confesses Martin Messer, Red Hat Asia-Pacific senior manager for global support. "In the open source model, we have always been able to leverage this massive global development team that builds the product, so we don't have to hire the entire community."
From a standing start in Australia in October 2003, Red Hat now employs 22 Australian support technicians and nearly 100 support staff worldwide. Since the launch of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) software and support offering in May 2002, those staff have been taking care of an increasingly enterprise-class clientele with growing sophistication and expectations of top-tier service. The company's options: provide it, or fall back into obscurity and bring all the goodwill Linux has earned in recent years crashing down with it.
"We've seen a massive change in the way we do support; we've really figured out how a global support model should work," says Messer. "Linux is something you have to understand down to the bare bones, and it is rare to come across someone who's a rock star in open source technology. But we hire passionate technologists and get them working within our [culture]. When we do find them we focus on developing a really high level of expertise -- but I spend more time with them on soft skills [such as customer service] than on hard technical skills."
I think this was a pretty negatively-focused article (e.g., starting with a case study of one person's bad experience). It discusses the issue of what are the pitfalls are of linux again and again yet provides little clue as to why people are interested in linux, i.e., the positives in using it. Successes are barely mentioned. What about the horror stories using windows that cause people to leave windows for linux? That is just as relevant to the author's story. And I have heard many horror stories of Microsoft's (and other propietary, non-open source vendor) support. Apache (open-source) is the most widely used web server software out there.