Staffing issues
Another factor to consider is the cost and availability of staff with the right skills. Are there any differences between operating systems?
Felix Borenstein: Right now, if you give me a week, I can get you 10 of anything. The skills shortage is a myth, though some technical skills are slightly harder to find than others.
But there are so many talented people unemployed that we can find the 10 best candidates for any position and you would want to hire at least half of them.
You don't have to consider the availability or--to any great extent--the cost of staff when making choices between the major corporate technologies, and I expect this to continue for at least a couple of years.
In fact, I don't think we're going to have a skills shortage ever again. There may be temporary shortages for highly specialised people for time to time, and people may need to look overseas for staff if they are in a hurry.
For example, we needed to bring in some Cool:Gen specialists from India for a client. But these situations are transient, and as soon as a project finishes somewhere, those skills are on the market again. Within the ranks of Unix system administrators, HP-UX, AIX, and Sun specialists attract a 25 percent premium over those who only have experience with SCO or some other flavour of Unix.
There's very little demand for Linux skills, except in some niche areas, and if someone knows Unix or Windows NT, they'll soon pick up Linux. Interest in Linux hasn't permeated to the recruitment market yet.
Furthermore, Windows NT and NetWare specialists increasingly have Unix experience. In today's world there's not going to be just one OS--there's always a Unix box somewhere in the organisation.
Every corporation of reasonable size requires skills in LAN, WAN, midrange, mainframe, storage servers, application servers, mail servers, and so on.
Commercial experience with NetWare 6 or Windows XP currently attracts a 10 to 20 percent premium over rates for those who only have experience with the previous versions.
But running either system on your home PC doesn't count--it has to be honest-to-goodness enterprise experience in a multi-server, multi-domain environment.
This premium will only last 12-18 months while the rest of the herd catches up. It's a classic supply and demand situation that we've seen before. For example, Novell CNEs attracted a premium until Windows NT took off, and then MCSEs attracted a premium until plenty of engineers had gained certification.
You can't rely on a core skill these days. Successful candidates have multiple disciplines, such as Windows 2000 and IIS and other Microsoft technologies, or NetWare and Notes and so on. This also applies to applications development, where employers may be looking for someone with Visual Basic, scripting, SQL, and Java. But this is actually a healthy sign.
Strong network management experience is also in demand, especially if it includes HP OpenView, IBM Tivoli, or CA Unicenter.
If you are looking for contract staff, the heat is out of the market and so there is pressure on contractors to take lower rates, especially in areas such as SAP and high-end project management.
For example, a project manager who was earning AU$1500 per day at the end of 2000 would only be getting AU$1000 a day in December 2001. Similarly, supply and demand has evened up for Cisco WAN specialists, so people who were on AU$75/hour contracts that are expiring are taking AU$65/hour in order to get those contracts extended.
But extensive experience at the real bleeding edge of technology, notably storage and real, demonstrable e-commerce experience, attracts a 10 to 15 percent premium.
As for permanent employees, people are being realistic in their expectations. There have been big layoffs, from Ansett, for example, but so far employers aren't taking advantage of the situation to drive down salaries too far. I think that's sensible: you want good people to stay with you for the long haul, so there's no good reason to underpay them.
There will always be competition for the top five percent of staff. Highly skilled, highly savvy people will always get work, but the bottom 20 percent are going to have a tough time over the next couple of years--they need to retrain, cross-train, and network to raise the level of their skills and contacts.
I find the comments about Unix versions other than Solaris becoming considered "legacy" systems rather funny. I believe it was Solaris that recently announced they would no longer be developing a version for Intel...
Furthermore; the only reason there is an "OS War" is because Microsoft is more interested in making money and increasing their market share than meeting the needs of their customers. Linux is not the one with the "secret" protocols and undocumented "standards."