Hi Keith, I'm not sure what the status of Linux is in the business community, but I can give you some information that I've picked up during my stint at one of Hawaii's premiere startups on Oahu (ymmv on Maui).
I worked at Pihana Pacific, Inc. (now known as Equinix) for three years. We built a network of neutral data centers throughout Asia and provided a variety of value-added services (i.e., bandwidth, data storage, backup/restore, peering, colocation services, etc.). At our peak, we were able to secure $290 Million in VC funding. During my three years, I held various positions in our Network Operations as well as Product Development groups. In my experience, the PHBs preferred to go with more "well known" unices, such as Solaris and HP-UX (basically becuase of all the wheeling & dealing going on with the vendors) and Microsoft products. All desktops, file servers, application servers, mail servers, VPN servers, etc. were Microsoft based systems. Our billing systems and CRM ran on Oracle and HP-UX. Solaris powered the customer-facing website. Cisco was our routing/switching brand of choice. We did have a few Linux boxes (Redhat & SuSE, as well as Trustix), primarily run by Linux enthusiats as internal development support systems and other non mission critical systems (i.e., group file server/website, some web development, etc.). In fact, I ran a Quake II server which we used to "test the network" occasionally. I believe Pihana was on par with most, if not all, of the high-tech, dot.com, startups, etc. in Honolulu. The more established companies and businesses are, I believe (and this includes government - city, state, and federal - with the exception of the schools), are firm believers in what I call the "status quo" OSes: Solaris, AIX, Microsoft. Although towards the end (before our meger with Equinix), we were beginning to look at Linux as the OS of choice for our low end NAS servers (customer facing). Today, based on what I know, there is no real impetus on the part of business to want to migrate to Linux anytime soon. I think many companies are testing the waters, but prefer to stay status quo. Now the reason I think they want to stay this way isn't so much based on fear of the unknown, or little-known OS, but because of the huge leverage the dominant vendors can bring to bear in terms of discounts and other perks...and, like they say, no one ever got fired for buying Microsoft (or Sun, or IBM, etc.). Anyways, good luck with your search. Hopefully you'll be able to prove me wrong and sign on with a company devoted to Linux. If you're looking for a sysadmin type job, the federal government (i.e., contractors) are looking for people who know Solaris and Microsoft. Hope that helps, Dwight... -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Keith Sent: Monday, August 25, 2003 3:31 PM To: LUAU List Subject: [luau] Linux in Hawaiian Industry Greetings fellow penguin lovers. (Penguins in Hawai'i? Who'd ever guess?) I'm a Mainlander (east coast; NY for 24 years, NJ for 4), heading to Maui with my immediate family in October of this year. Coming with me will be 8 years of solid linux experience (since the slackware 1 days), 4 years of which is in industry (granted, with startup companies that chose Linux for cost-cutting reasons more than anything else). I certainly do not want to leave this experience behind; I'd like it to continue to grow as it has over the past years. (My friends here joke about witnessing a "penguin revolution in the tropics".) I spoke with "halfline" in #hosef on IRC for a little bit earlier and he suggested that I present my questions to this list. So, in a nutshell, what is the position of Linux in Hawaiian commercial industry? And what, if anything, is HOSEF doing to promote commercial Linux usage? I understand the cost of doing business (and hiring full-time employees, for that matter) is very high. Linux is a logical cost-cutting solution, at least from a computing perspective, and it would amaze me if businesses don't at least consider using it. All of your feedback will be greatly appreciated. I'm finding it rather difficult to locate potential employment opportunities in this field (sys admining/sys programming) over there. Thanks for your time! Aloha! krjw. -- Keith R. John Warno [k r j w at optonline dot net] "I've coined new words, like, misunderstanding and Hispanically." -- George "Dubuhyuh" Bush, Washington, DC, March 29, 2001 _______________________________________________ LUAU mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://videl.ics.hawaii.edu/mailman/listinfo/luau
