From a fellow MVP, I came to know about these links, "Indian state (Kerala) logs Microsoft out" and Kerala logs Microsoft out.
I normally hate the talk of who is bigger "MS or others". As I always have a feeling that, depending upon the project, situation, budget etc., let the lead and management decide on the best software / platform to use.
For developers, on layman's terms ... "Learn the technology which is going to feed you :) If C# seems to feed you better learn it. If tomorrow, Perl seems to come up hot again then it’s better to learn it else you would be left behind."
Regarding this Kerala government’s move:
If an organization decides that by moving to Linux we would save huge money and in many ways it would help our client as well then I have nothing to complain against.
If a government says that all schools would be moving to Linux platform I am really worried for the next generation students. At least 80% to 90% of the software development in India is depending on Microsoft platforms, which being the case what would these kids do after learning Linux platform alone? They should ideally learn both :)
The bottom line is, students should learn Windows, Linux and other platforms as well so that they would be better prepared to face the real world :) This Kerala government’s move doesn't seem to make any sense to me.
Technorati tags: Microsoft, Linux
I normally hate the talk of who is bigger "MS or others". As I always have a feeling that, depending upon the project, situation, budget etc., let the lead and management decide on the best software / platform to use.
For developers, on layman's terms ... "Learn the technology which is going to feed you :) If C# seems to feed you better learn it. If tomorrow, Perl seems to come up hot again then it’s better to learn it else you would be left behind."
Regarding this Kerala government’s move:
If an organization decides that by moving to Linux we would save huge money and in many ways it would help our client as well then I have nothing to complain against.
If a government says that all schools would be moving to Linux platform I am really worried for the next generation students. At least 80% to 90% of the software development in India is depending on Microsoft platforms, which being the case what would these kids do after learning Linux platform alone? They should ideally learn both :)
The bottom line is, students should learn Windows, Linux and other platforms as well so that they would be better prepared to face the real world :) This Kerala government’s move doesn't seem to make any sense to me.
Technorati tags: Microsoft, Linux
Comments
I agree, students should be taught both the technologies. Well that's an interesting move though.
Student's interest is the main thing. Trying to learn all the things is "Jack of all trades and master of none"
anyway a great post vadivel...
Thanks
There are 3 choices
1. Learn technology of their choice or
2. Learn the technology that helps in broader opportunities
3. Learn both
I would agree with Vadivel on this concern of "next generation students" but let students learn linux in schools days. later they can learn windows from any training institute perhaps in more professional way then how windows is taugh in schools today.
Overall i don;t see much impact of gov. decission, nither on I.T industry nor to Microsft business in Kerala.
- Jignesh
Comment on above post..
Champ,,, Do you know what is the exact number or percentage %?? if it is not correct.
For Freshers on naukri.com:
A search on ‘microsoft” turns out 174 jobs while search on “linux” turns up only 33 results i.e. around 5 times more jobs in favour of MS.
On Monster.com:
Search on “Microsoft” throws 20159 results while search on “linux” turns up only 2924 i.e. around 7 times more jobs in favour of MS.
It is obvious that in MS technologies, you have 5 -6 times better chance of getting employed versus on Linux.
Ps: Here the comparision is b/w Linux and MS not b/w Java and MS
Let us take abhishekkant's idea of using monster.
For a typical job profile of OS administrator, monsterindia.com returns the following figures,as on today
Windows Administrator - 3879
Linux Administrator - 3622
That's a huge difference of 257 jobs more in Microsoft. I have to agree to you now ;-)
Most of your points have been answered by others. I would like to answer some that have not:
Let's play devil's advocate here, and say that all schools do run licensed MS products -
1. do you know the cost difference involved between MS Windows + Office and a free OS like GNU/Linux (which these comes bundled in with OpenOffice.org, a host of multimedia players, support for nearly all kinds of file formats, etc. etc.) multiplied by 1200 schools?
2. If one fine day, MS decides to hike their support charges (which are phenomenal anyway) or take such measures that nearly all companies do, what will poor government treasuries do? Do they have any other avenue for support? (If you use GNU/Linux, there are already many companies that offer support. If you feel one company isn't good enough, you can easily switch to another WITHOUT having to make any software changes. THIS is what is meant by the "Free" in Free Software).
3. By allowing monopolistic companies like microsoft to penetrate every sphere of activity, don't we give them the power to possibly armtwist the state and hold it to ransom (witness what big oil companies have accomplished in the US and Iraq in bush's time).
4. Even if we take your word that job scope for GNU/LInux is less in India, measures like this will increase it, not kill the careers of *bright* kids. Obviously, all those schools will require support and training. Some companies who are capable of doing it (and i work in one such), will step in to try and fill the void. If we cannot completely satisfy the market, the client (in this case the govt.) will ask others for help, so more will jump in, and such companies will then grow in size. Then they will need more people to do this work. This is just ONE of those areas where people who have learned these skills, indeed, even kids graduating from these schools years later, will have very good prospects. When it becomes a known fact that this is a profitable business, many other companies will also jump on to the bandwagon (perfect example being a mainly proprietary software company like IBM, which today has huge stakes in Linux, which could eventually give competition to it's own OS, i.e. AIX).
5. It is quite possible that many such kids who graduate with very strong GNU/Linux or such skills would establish their own companies, which will offer employment to people who have come out of this system. That is the way it works, nearly always.
6. As for learning the technlogy which "feeds you better", if everyone starts thinking in just these terms, what sort of professional diversity will we have left in our country?
7. In fact, a lot of the success of India's software industry today couldn't have come about without the help of Free Software (including languages like C, C++, Java, Perl) and the tools which have been derived from it.