Date: Fri, 23 Jun 2000 15:36:42 -0700 From: Ryan.Gamo@sce.com To: freebsd-newbies@freebsd.org, freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Manager's response re: FreeBSD Message-ID: <OF197E14D8.06598A3A-ON88256907.007BA10A@sce.com>
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Textbook management response. A lot of managers (especially non-technical
ones) need to trust their technical resources such as yourself. Whatever
you presented him with, must have been pretty good. He seems well informed.
Realizing that FreeBSD can definitely fulfill some roles in your
organization. It is a compact and versatile OS.
Ryan M. Gamo
IT Application Services - TDBU
Phone: (626)308-6696 * Fax: (626)308-6390
Pager: (888)586-7992 PIN 318489
"KNOW YOUR ROLE"
Joe.Warner@smed.com
Sent by: To: freebsd-newbies@FreeBSD.ORG,
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Subject: Manager's response re: FreeBSD
06/23/2000 01:45 PM
Here's a response I got from one of my managers re: FreeBSD. Any comments
or replys would be welcome. Thanks.
Joe
I had actually heard most of those questions and answers before, but that
was a nice review. As I see it, our problem has several facets: One is
that Novell and now Microsoft have spent years training and certifying
people to use and administer their products. In so doing, they have
created a captive sales force to promote their products at the expense of
the competition. Once you have invested a lot of time in getting yourself
certified, and your future career seems tied to that certification, there
is a natural reluctance to jump ship and start working with something new
or different. If you don't constantly work on Novell servers, for
instance, it will be hard to keep sharp in that regard.
A second problem is that there is a lack of trained Unix administrators
within our organization. Even though Unix and Unix-like operating systems
are very common on the planet, our organization has few of them in the IS
dept. That is true locally, and obviously is true at corporate. Those who
would be good at this are scattered in various departments, making it hard
to get their presence felt. This shakes down to two issues; training and
organization. If this OS is going to make progress in this company, there
must be sufficient resources available to make it work (especially in
transition), and there must be sufficient visibility that it can influence
decision makers, especially at high levels.
A third problem is the famous Microsoft marketing plan. We are a business
partner with Microsoft. That probably means that in order to get good
pricing on application software, we are encouraged to use NT as our
platform of choice. While there are other products to compete with
Microsoft,again you run up against issue #2. Clearly, when you look at our
company, it has actively sought out arrangements with the largest and most
powerful partners it can find, in this case, that is Microsoft. Even our
strong tie with IBM did not put OS2 or AIX on any desktops.
While I think there are good and persuasive arguments for Linux/FreeBSD
Unix as an operating system, for these reasons, right now I don't see it
having the political clout in our organization necessary to actually be
placed in service. The places where I think it could make inroads is in
those areas that NT is weakest. Unfortunately, most of those uses are
handled out of corporate (Webservers, large volume servers, firewalls,
gateways, etc.). What is left? I think that is our challenge, to find
some niches where NT is too expensive or inflexible to offer a solution.
Your solution of the packet sniffer is an excellent one. We need to
promote that solution, install it and train the staff on its use. Once we
are all using it, you will need to find a way to sing its praises to
corporate in a way that won't offend any entrenched interests. If you are
ultimately successful, then you can use that beach-head to find other
niches to exploit.
Good luck. As always, if you or any of your IM force is caught or killed
our secretary will disavow any knowledge of your activities.
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