Google is working with three major IT consulting firms to launch an open source software blitz in Australia, The VAR Guy has learned. An event is planned for November 7 at Google’s Australia headquarters in Sydney. Details about the effort are still emerging but here’s the early scoop from The VAR Guy.
An invite sent to selected members of Australia’s IT community states:
We are pleased to invite you to the official launch of Australia’s first open source business cluster. The cluster’s objectives are to:
- Provide business and Government with a single point of contact for access to vendors offering consulting, development and support of open source solutions.
- Inform business and Government on how to leverage off open source technologies to achieve greater value for money, higher quality software and fit to need outcomes.
- Encourage open source companies to collaborate with the objective to promote and grow the open source industry.
Taking the Stage
Hmmm. Sounds interesting. But it gets extra interesting when you look at the event’s speaker lineup.
- Grant Allen, from Google Headquarters in Sydney as the Keynote speaker
- Maria Padisetti, CEO, Digital Armour Corporation, a major IT consulting firm
- Paul Robinson, director, Syntonic Corporation Pty Ltd, an IT consulting firm in North Sydney
- Dylan Jay, technical solutions manager at PretaWeb Pty Ltd, which offers consulting and development services for Plone — an open source content management system
This is not another Linux event, folks. Allen is a well-known expert on numerous databases, including MySQL — the fast-growing open source option. And the stakes are high for open source in Australia.
Small Business Server, Big Opportunities
During a series of managed services events this week in Australia, The VAR Guy heard how Microsoft remains firmly entrenched in the land down under.
Sure, Linux-based Netbooks are hot sellers in Australia. But one source tells our resident blogger that Microsoft frequently uses the Australia market to beta test sales techniques and software launches because the country is so darn loyal to Redmond.
Need further proof? Australia has the largest per capita use of Microsoft Windows Small Business Server in the world, according to one source in the know.
Now, Google and its partners hope to break Microsoft’s stranglehold down under. The effort starts November 7.
The VAR Guy and the Nine Lives Media Inc. editorial team are blogging live from Australia October 26 through 31, while participating in a series of local managed services conferences. Note: The VAR Guy is updated multiple times daily. Don’t miss a single post. Subscribe to his newsletter, RSS and Twitter feed.
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If Google can loosen up that market, they will be “giving back” to the FLOSS community in a big way. Good luck to them.
Globally, M$ has a lot of baggage that works against M$: price, complexity, and backwards compatibility with bugs and errors in design. Everywhere people are tired of struggling with the perpetual supply of bugs in M$’s stuff. That is why business and many others cling to XP. At least they could manage that. Few are confident that Vista and Vista II will be manageable. Everyone knows that GNU/Linux works, even though it may be rough around the edges. A bit of roughness costs much less than a lot of complexity and bugs. The long period between releases and the steady advance of GNU/Linux gives us a tortoise and hare situation.
In my own place, we wasted days bringing the last “emergency” patch into place, the boss already runs GNU/Linux on his laptop, I have converted several customers’ systems to GNU/Linux, the students have all seen or used GNU/Linux, and the budget for IT is minimal. Which way do you think we will go? Vista X by replacing everything, or GNU/Linux with a modest expenditure on the network and servers? Do the maths. Any in a similar situation will seriously consider FLOSS. If I had decent servers, I would work 16 hour days to convert our system in a week and rest later.
The tide is rising against the monopoly. The netbooks are just the first trickle over the dam. There is more to follow. The tidal wave of adoption for GNU/Linux started about a decade ago on the server, a few years ago on the desktop and it is building faster than ever now. The current fiscal crisis will cause some to stay with what they have but any who count the cost of operation may see GNU/Linux is necessary now. I think the next surge in GNU/Linux adoption will be a large segment who can go with thin client technology. Many will be able to use GNU/Linux on thin clients and obtain prompt benefits in cost of operations. In schools where thin clients are used the workload for IT goes down by several times and the headaches disappear.
I can’t agree more with Robert. Having worked in a business that almost solely promoted and supported M$ SBS I can vouch for what the article says and it is SO frustrating. My boss would never have entertained the idea of promoting and supporting open source even though from experience I could tell that a lot of our customers would have benefited greatly putting in linux servers and using thin client technology. Having setup several modest size thin client solutions (LTSP) for one particular education institution myself, the reduction in TCO and time savings (not to mention frustration savings which should not be overlooked as a real factor) became evident immediately.
One of the main limiting factors for business that is making it hard for them to adopt linux is vendor lock in. I don’t think it takes much to convince people of the benefits of linux, and it doesn’t take much to demonstrate it either, HOWEVER, if you depend on a proprietary application or set of applications to run your business, which has only been developed for one platform and there are no other viable alternatives then it makes it either impossible or impractical for a business to move and over. It’s not just M$ to blame here, it’s all proprietary software development firms who refuse to use open standards and formats.
If only 10 years ago people had thought ahead to what it meant for them to ‘lock’ there business into dependency on one platform/developer – how much less painful it would be now!
I seriously wish I could get my CEO an invite to this event.
Our corporation (the largest in it’s sector in the country, 10000+ desktops), are currently looking at FLOSS as an alternative. An event like this could really help me sell it.
If you know the organiser and can supply contact details then please email some details.
Cheers,
Arkay.
Arkay: Check your email. The VAR Guy asked me to send some info to you.
I wonder if google will make their FOSS source code OPEN, and take the lead.
or keep it closed as they have done to date ?
is this a case of google saying “do as i say, not what i do”.
Isn’t google the next “EVIL” bad guy, or do they need to give billions of dollars to charity to be truly evil
Dave: The VAR Guy feels your pain. Google really needs to practice what it preaches with open source. That starts with Android.
Giving billions of dollars to charity and getting a tax break of 200% sort of qualifies as you are making a profit out of other’s misfortunes, but insisting that donations are dependent on setting up centres of excellence for your particular brand, certainly does tip the balance of justice to the Gordon Gecko greed is good side, no matter what the results.
Google on the other hand do give back to the community by allowing us access to the great International library that is the web for no cost or license fees.
The cloud computing using servers being touted by IT players at present is only a short term stop gap till ISP connections become leased always on relatively small P2P computing nodes storing local and networked redundant data, and supplying unprecedented amounts of grid power by utilising unused cycles especially for those where user are asleep.
We won’t be using Windows or MAC, but maybe Linux will operate our end user interfaces. The application interface will be the browser, which might not even have bars. If Google can get countries to add to the Open Source and move development efforts away from Microsoft dependence, we could have all this within 10 years.
Arkay: I’m sure if you contact Digital Armour, PretaWeb or Syntonic we could arrange that for you.
Cheers,
Paul
Oh My! I do hope this all goes really well!
I’ve been waiting and waiting and waiting for this! My Dad has been waiting all his life and I’ve been waiting ever since I got into the industry.
It is spot-on to say that Microsoft has a strangle-hold on Australian consumers. I would not be surprised if they actually pay big hardware manufacturers to not ship their Linux products here – look at Dell and HP – they refuse to sell me their Linux options. They cite ‘no market’ as their excuse, but that simply isn’t true. Every time they release a Linux product somewhere else in the world and don’t bring it here everyone – including the media – is up in arms, yet they still refuse to bring it here.
The shift towards Microsoft alternatives has happened in the schools. Especially places like TAFE and Uni. Where once it was ‘taboo’ to say Linux, its now becoming more and more accepted as a great solution. You will still get these little IT shops that will get angry at you if you inquire about Linux, but overall this mentality is beginning to change.
I myself have experienced the problems (cost especially!) that Linux addresses in schools. Moving from pirated copies of Microsoft Office to free OpenOffice.org is just a small but significant step.
Again, I’m overly excited to hear this, I hope it is only the start of a very large and committed push.
If you are interested in attending the launch of Australia’s First Open Source Business Cluster at Google Headquarters Sydney, 10am Friday 7 November then please contact Virginia on 9955-2830 or email virginia@pretaweb.com.
Joe,
Thanks for the info.
Cheers,
Arkay.