IBM and Red Hat Offer College Prep

Califa writes "IBM announced Tuesday it will work with Red Hat to bring universities up to speed in teaching college students open source skills." From the article: "The company said its research of technology training at universities around the world have shown a need for more open-standards offerings. About 75 percent of a group of CEOs interviewed by IBM's Business Consulting Services said education and a lack of qualified candidates are the two issues with the greatest impact on their business."

Comments

Which skills?

[Agelmar]

I wonder what exactly will be taught in IBM's ideal, new program. According to the story, "The companies' training will help teach students skills for Linux as well as IBM software and servers." What training for IBM software and servers is appropriate for a University program? For an IT-certification, training on specific IBM programs may be appropriate, but for a true computer science degree, I should think a familiarity with *nix and the ability to learn a new OS would be much better than specific training on "IBM software and servers".

Re:Which skills?

[fantom2000]

IBM develops and uses AIX, a UNIX operating system. Such exposure would be enough, in conjunction with linux, to introduce them to the *nix world.

Re:Which skills?

[mrchaotica]

Maybe they're talking about the (apparently) large number of "colleges" (like DeVry) that teach only Microsoft-oriented programming?

Re:Which skills?

[Stibidor]

Plus it's great name exposure for IBM and RedHat (who are both very interested in such a thing). These students will come out feeling quite comfortable with IBM and RedHat products and will thus be more likely to choose them when the opportunity presents itself.

Re:Which skills?

[D-Cypell]

I looked into courses at Devry a few years back. Unless they have been bought by Redmond then Java featured pretty seriously. Clearly not open source in the strictess sense, but hardly Microsoft-oriented either.

Re:Which skills?

[Anonymous Coward]

"You know, like nunchuck skills, bowhunting skills, computer hacking skills... Girls only want boyfriends who have great skills. "

Re:Which skills?

[supabeast!]

IBM sells servers running AIX and Linux that run from single CPU boxes to massive supercomputer/mainframe systems. IBM also makes high-end database and web-server software. Exposure to those kinds of technology and the related essential skills is pretty important for a CS student.

Re:Which skills?

[miyako]

I go to DeVry (though I'm certainly not a huge fan of them), and I can confirm that this is about half true. DeVry is certainly in bed with microsoft, but I wouldn't say that they teach only Microsoft-oriented programming. Of the 8 programming courses I've had (C++/C++2, Java/Java2, VB, PHP, COBOL, Assembly), one was completely Microsoft Oriented (VB), and two were semi-microsoft oriented. Our C++2 class featured a brief overview of Windows programming at the end of the class. They did use Visual Studio.NET as the IDE for both courses, but I did just fine writing all my homework assignments in vim, compiling with g++, and running on Linux to generate the sample output. The PHP course also covered a bit of ASP at the beginning of the course.
Java I/II are both based around sun's java as opposed to J# or whatever basterdized version of Java microsoft is peddling now (though they do have a C# class they are offering now).
As for some of the other classes at DeVry. All of the database classes are built around Oracle, though they do go over MySQL a bit. I've recently been showing one of my professors a bit about Postgresql, and she seems interested in show some of the new classes a bit about it as well.
The web design classes are built around Dreamweaver (and yes, they do teach how to hand-code) and the webserver is running apache.
I'm not a networking major, so I've only had a few networking classes, but of the three networking classes I've had, one was purely theory, one was a combination of Windows 2000 server and Redhat, and the other was purely based around RedHat.
I do still have the complaint that DeVry spends too much time teaching specific applicaitons and not enough time teaching theory (although, I do often counter myself that I can learn theory well enough on my own), but DeVry does teach a range of programming and other technologies not entirely Microsoft-Oriented.

Re:Which skills?

[bcrowell]

Maybe they're talking about the (apparently) large number of "colleges" (like DeVry) that teach only Microsoft-oriented programming?
I teach at a community college that is heavily MS-oriented. The MS bias really shows up the most in the low-level courses, the ones that teach you how to use Word and Excel, etc. Those are 100% MS. But if you're learning C++, who cares whether you're learning it on one OS or the other? And ditto for all the theory CS majors learn -- a bubble sort is the wrong algorithm for a large data set, and that has nothing to do with any particular OS.

The big issue is the faculty, anyway. One guy on the CS faculty at my school tinkers with Linux and thinks it's cool, but the rest just aren't interested, AFAICT (and don't even think about trying to sell it to the IT folks).

Re:Which skills?

[mrchaotica]

I do still have the complaint that DeVry spends too much time teaching specific applicaitons and not enough time teaching theory (although, I do often counter myself that I can learn theory well enough on my own)

That scares me, especially in light of the fact that you described your courses as "C++", "Java", etc. As a Georgia Tech student, I describe my classes as "Intro to CS (algorithms and functional programming)", "Object-oriented programming", "Languages and translation", "Design of operating systems", etc. The way I see it, if you have a good foundation in theory it's easy to adapt to new languages and technologies, but the reverse is not true. As an example, just about every class uses a different language: Scheme, Java, C, Smalltalk, etc. and we don't spend more than two weeks or so learning the language itself.

Re:Which skills?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe they're talking about the (apparently) large number of "colleges" (like DeVry) that teach only Microsoft-oriented programming?

Sadly the state university I attended was similar. Everything was Microsoft from the lab computers to requiring you use use Visual Studio for your projects, Microsoft Office for your documents, etc. We had one very very small lab of PII-300 Linux workstations (about 6 of them) and about four Sun Sparcstation 4's and a handful of ancient SGI desktops. Basically crap that was older 10 years old. The only reason they kept it around is for the network programming class where they show you the differences between programming network apps on a little endian vs. big endian system.

Re:Which skills?

[miyako]

What you have to realize is that DeVry does not offer a computer science degree. My major is Computer Information Systems, which is not the same thing as Computer Science.
If I had it to do again, I might go to a proper school and get a proper CS degree, but I admit to being bamboozled by the recruiters. Of course, as I do not have any plans to work in academia, I will probably in the end be well served by the fact that DeVry has a (perhaps undeserved) very good reputation in the business world (or at least that's what they keep telling us). In all honest, I'm just going to school so I can get a degree, I've never let school interfere with my learning, and I've invested a good deal of time teaching myself things more commonly found in pure CS courses.
That said, the courses are not of course called "C++" or "Java", I was merely using those as the names of the languages used in the classes to point out that DeVry does not teach purely Microsoft programming.

Re:Which skills?

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, whatever. Here's some name exposure for you:

The IT team at my company convinced me that we should load RHEL on some of our back-end systems. Being a hardcore Solaris guy, I was apprehensive at first, but I eventually caved and green-lighted the plan. Our Solaris 9 servers had been running fine up until that point, but I was anxious to obtain vendor independence.

When our Linux systems went into service, everything was as smooth as you could possibly imagine; Domino was a sufficient replacement for WebSphere, and our clients were happy. Unfortunately, it was all downhill from there.

In less than a week, the IT department was in complete hysterics due to the spontaneous crashing, shoddy support from IBM, and the sheer amount of complaints we were recieving. Our IT infrastructure quickly ground to a halt. The network was down, databases were corrupted, and cybervandals had taken advantage of Linux's poor security in order to steal our customers' personal information and blackmail us.

It was a long and arduous process, but everything is OK now that we've crawled back into the sweet embrace of Sun and outsourced our IT to Cuba.

It's clear to me now that Linux is not only unready for enterprise production, but is wholly unsound for all but the most insignifigant of computing tasks.

Re:Which skills?

[Master of Transhuman]

Now here's a bullshit story if I ever heard one...

Take it down the road, Microsoft troll (and, no, I don't for an instant believe you know shit about either Solaris or Linux.)

Re:Which skills?

[Master of Transhuman]

City College of San Francisco has a fairly well-rounded program (not that brilliant, it is only a community college, not a university) covering both Microsoft products and UNIX/Linux.

They have the usual business department courses in using Microsoft Office products.

The CS (Computer Science) department teaches C, C++, Java, Visual Basic.NET, C#, and in the fall, Python and PHP, and has taught Perl in the past, as well as UNIX/Linux systems administration, UNIX/Linux system programming, database courses on Oracle, database administration, SQL and PL/SQL, systems analysis and this fall, an AI course.

The CNIT (Computer Networking and Information Technology) teaches Cisco networking, Windows networking, wireless networking, UNIX network administration, security (both Windows and UNIX), and Web design and programming, as well as basic hardware and OS courses (A+ level).

City College is the largest community college district in the country with close to 80-90,000 students (counting credit and noncredit), multiple campuses around the city, and 4500 courses.

Quality of teachers vary widely, of course. You can get someone clueless, someone with a lot of experience who teaches badly, or someone with a lot of experience who teaches well. A lot of the IT teachers here work in the private sector as IT consultants or run their own IT consulting companies.

Open source doesn't get mentioned a lot except on the UNIX side, or in courses like Perl. I don't think anything about the breadth of OSS software available, or about how OSS development is done, is discussed anywhere. In that respect, some inroads by IBM and Red Hat would probably be valuable. Just talking about IBM and Red Hat products would not be particularly helpful. That would be as bad as just talking about Microsoft.

Interesting..

[techfury90]

This might be cool for me since I start some classes at NCSU next year, possibly some linux related ones. Might be interesting to see if the curriculum is redhat oriented or something.

Re:Interesting..

[Anonymous Coward]

Hit those books! You certainly won't be getting any pussy so you should have plenty of time to study.

Re:Interesting..

[Anonymous Coward]

NCSU, sigh ::nods head in disappointment::

Re:Interesting..

[Anonymous Coward]

ahh yes... NCSU.

There are no women in Raleigh my friend.

If you want to get laid, you will have to go to Meridith, Peace College or St Mary's.

All are girls schools and are within 5 - 10 min.

Re:Interesting..

[techfury90]

I'm actually a sophomore in high school next year taking some NCSU classes for both high school and college credit... not like I have much choice to go anywhere else. And of course Meridith would have lots of women... wasn't that college women only until a few years ago or soomething?

Re:Interesting..

[dingfelder]

Please go and nod somewhere else, unless you have something useful to say.

NCSU is listed by kiplinger as the 11th best value for all universities in the country.
http://www.kiplinger.com/tools/colleges/

They may not be MIT but they are pretty darn good for engineering.

For example, their engeneering department has the 11th highest research budget of any school in the US.

The NCSU Centennial Campus is an enormous research center (a second campus) where over 100 companies and government agencies work hand in hand with the university. For example, in addition to their nanotech biomed research, they are also closely involved in NASA work with projects like the space shuttle: http://www.engr.ncsu.edu/news/news_articles/puzzle .html

About time...

[glamslam]

This is very welcome as we are looking to hire people with Open Source experience... but everyone we have talked to says, "I've been wanting to try that Linux thingie. I just downloaded Linux 9.0 and I hope to install it someday!"

Making inroads into higher-ed (and I'm not just talking in the server room, but the class room) is critical to Linux's wider adoption.

Re:About time...

[locokamil]

Hire me! I have done nothing but open source since the beginning of freshman year. Seriously. (If you can't tell, I'm a despairing graduating senior).

Re:About time...

[conteXXt]

Please o please o tell me you re based in Canada (anywhere) or are a telecommuting-friendly org.

Please?

Re:About time...

[bcmm]

OT but doesn't it piss you off when someone says "Tried Linux [some number that can't be a kernel]; it didn't have any good programs and couldn't play mp3s", and they can't tell you which distro they had?

My Opinion

[BioCS.Nerd]

This could be a really good idea. It's been my opinion for about a year now that a class should be tought to all CS students on licensing, and ethics. OSS development directly requires a knowledge of both. But in reading the article it almost sounds as if RH and IBM would merely use the time to pimp their products versus and real world skills. I.E. "This is how you setup a RH IBM sevver 101"

Re:My Opinion

[mrchaotica]

In addition to licensing and ethics, a good overview of common open source -- not RH or IBM-specific -- tools would be in order. Stuff like how to use Linux, cvs, gcc, eclipse, etc. and how to find tools and code on Sourceforge and whatnot.

Re:My Opinion

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd be inclined to hire the grad with an extra semester of CS over the one with a semester of obsessive license squabbling.

Spot the difference?

[D-Cypell]

About 75 percent of a group of CEOs interviewed by IBM's Business Consulting Services said education and a lack of qualified candidates are the two issues with the greatest impact on their business

Isnt this just the same issue stated twice?

Re:Spot the difference?

[lostwanderer147]

About 75 percent of a group of CEOs interviewed by IBM's Business Consulting Services said education and a lack of qualified candidates are the two issues with the greatest impact on their business

Isnt this just the same issue stated twice?

See? They're right.

Re:Spot the difference?

[benjamindees]

No. In a CEO's mind, those issues are completely separate, and have been for years.

In a few more months, the neurons that contain these concepts in the heads of most CEOs will find each other, and the issues will become one. But, until then, we'll still see Billy G. begging for more H1-B visas instead of helping colleges to create those workers with "security" experience that he's interested in hiring all-of-a-sudden.

Re:Spot the difference?

[EdelFactor19]

hardly... you can be uneducated but a master programmer, and you can be educated but hardly qualified. Example? lets say i didnt go to college but programmed all day and night.. the world would consider me uneducated but with enough experience i could be considred qualified. on the other hand perhaps daddy bought my way into an IVY and i have a bs in CS from some fancy school, but i have never done significant work on my own, and aside from decent enough grades lack any real skills in programming, very possible mind you. i now am educated but am unqualified.. ever read job specs, just about every job ever posted in software or cs reads: qualified candidates should have 3-5 or 5-10 years expereience in development in such and such... you wouldn't believe how many pages on a companies so called college recruiting / new grad oppurtunities require over 5 years of experience developing software... and unless the stuff we develop for our college projects counts how is a new grad supposed to have that kind of experience? the problem is that big companies are often pigeon holing themselves into believing a quality candidate will be the best "educated" and "qualified" and not looking for the best programmers or even people for the job. more often it seems the definition of qualified is the problem. The real problem may be the entry level positions and their publication. The quality candidates and future employees are definately out there, perhaps the real question is who is sifting them and determing who knows what? on another note i wonder how many of those CEO's and or their main hiring people read /. just some thoughts, keep em coming

A question of goals

[ProfaneBaby]

I question these types of programs. What do you want an applicant to have? Familiarity with a specific distribution and a specific skill set, or the ability to learn?

I got passed over for a job or two because I didn't know application 'X'. Sure, I know the theory - I've written a TCP stack from scratch, I understand the core components of operating systems, and I've acted as a sysadmin on 6 UNIX variants for over 10 years, but I didn't know some specific keyword used in a Postgres config, so apparently I'm "not qualified"

Everytime I see something like this - the same type of programs where Microsoft sends out techs to teach people how to pass an MCSE so they can be 'network specialists' without ever explaining what a SYN packet is - I wonder what the goal of the program is. Are they trying to teach people a specific platform, or are they trying to teach people concepts and theory.

From experience, I'm afraid that they're going to train people to be the ReHhat equivalents of an MCSE - and we all know how respected they are in the 'real world.'

Re:A question of goals

[McGiraf]

oh man, your so right, but the problem is to find people that can do the interviews and spot people like you, that is hard.

Re:A question of goals

[Skapare]

They are trying to flood the candidate pool with paper techies to help drive down the salaries so managers will see IBM's and Red Hat's products as lower cost than the others. You might not get some job because of not knowing all the magic keywords or menu layout for application X, but when you do get a job, you can be sure your new boss will tell you, when you try to negotiate the lowball pay up a bit, that he has 50 other fully qualified candidates and that you should consider yourself lucky to be getting the offer (as if he picked your resume out of a hat).

Re:A question of goals

[Anonymous Coward]

"What do you want an applicant to have? Familiarity with a specific distribution and a specific skill set, or the ability to learn?"

Often, in my experience, the applicant fails to make her/his case. If you fail in respect to a requirement speak up, note the deficiency then put forward your case as to why, in spite of the lacuna, you have shown superior abilities and the quickness to acquire new paradigms. There is a loss of face syndrome that causes people to withdraw into themselves when ever they come up short. Business people are risk takers and, as such, fail, but they learn from failure, they don't hide from it.

Re:A question of goals

[conteXXt]

simple answer:

They are trying to teach people to work for peanuts and be locked in (MCSE example above).

Unix admins make more than windows admins because "managers" understand pointyclicky pretty pictures.

They "think" that unix is harder (muuuhahahahahh, we'll just keep the secret) and therefore when forced to impliment it, are willing to pay for admins (or perish the thought, training for Windows admins)

Now the truth. Windows is infinitly harder to admin than unix. (think about it carefully for a second)

Windows admins have to deal with what is essentially a large sandbox full of ADD inflicted children and a bunch of diahretic cats. It's a constant struggle to keep yourself from killing children (user applications) while dodging the runny turds (virus/spy/ad ware). Add to this the fact that your manager is probably of the mindset that Microsoft has addressed these problems and it's YOUR fault that those skid and crush incidents keep happening.

Life sucks as a windows admin. Life is f'n glorious for my unix loving brethren (yes that sorta includes tha mac osx people too, but only begrudgingly, you with your fancy pointy clicky front ends to the raw text files)

Oh well, I feel better, not bitter.

Re:A question of goals

[supabeast!]

"I got passed over for a job or two because I didn't know application 'X'. Sure, I know the theory..."

That used to happen to me all the time. I blew one job interview by knowing how to configure something in BIND that worked a little differently in whatever they were using, and another by not doing a BASH loop the way one of the interviewers liked to write his, and there were several other cases like it. The problem is that most IT managers are techies who get promoted to management instead of good managers who got into tech, so they don't have the management skills and knowledge to realize that giving someone to a week to figure out the ins-and-outs of your particular software choice and it's config files is a lot easier then spending weeks or months looking for that "perfect" candidate.

Every time I look back on stupid shit like that I remember why I got out of IT and went to art school.

Re:A question of goals

[chris_mahan]

In my experience, I interview them.

When they ask me about such and such function, I tell them: there's a million different ways to approach a particular problem.

When they ask me about a particular acronym: I reply: Google.

When they stare at me blankly, I tell them: You've yet to tell me what you are trying to achieve in your goal to give better value to your customers and shareholders.

This is when the manager laughs and tells his goons that the interview is over, and then he takes me to lunch to discuss his career.

Remember, if they don't "get it" at the interview, they'll _never_ "get it".

What really works, though, is to give them the kicker demo of the web site you've built in two weeks that slices, dices, and makes sandwiches. There's nothing more impressive for managers than a slick demo. Well, maybe strippers.

Re:A question of goals

[kfg]

are they trying to teach people concepts and theory.

They are training NOC monkeys. People who are trained not to think,to perform a specified business task, mechanically and interchangably. Parts is parts.

The above is expressed somewhat cynically, but it is not a troll. It really is what they are up to, and they not only know it, it is a codified business practice. Never stake your business on that which cannot be replaced, since the business fails with the failure of the irreplacable. People are guarunteed to fail. Mediocrity, by definition, can be easily replaced.

Of course this is why a small outfit comprised of a few exceptional people can come out of nowhere and eat the lunch of some big establishment, but in doing to they become a big establishment. . .

Rinse and repeat.

Besides, we both know this is more marketing than anything else, to make sure the future NOC monkeys jabber for IBM and Red Hat kit. Gentoo on a beowulf cluster of old PIIIs need not apply.

KFG

Re:A question of goals

[Anonymous Coward]

Every time I look back on stupid shit like that I remember why I got out of IT and went to art school.

... uh ... grades?

Re:A question of goals

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like a great way to hire salespeople or spokesmodels but a very bad way to hire technical people.

If your job is to hire the best people than you need to draw out the intraverts instead of advising them to change their personality.

Re:A question of goals

[supabeast!]

"... uh ... grades?"

Bah, compared to running multiple Solaris/NT/AD/Linux environments single-handedly on tiny budgets, getting good grades is a cinch.

Re:A question of goals

[ClosedSource]

"From experience, I'm afraid that they're going to train people to be the ReHhat equivalents of an MCSE - and we all know how respected they are in the 'real world.'"

What's the difference between a Windows Administrator and a Windows Administrator with an MCSE? The Admin with the MCSE took a test that proves a certain amount of competency with MS technologies. It's absurd to believe that the average admin without the certification is superior to the average admin with it.

It's the same with a RedHat certification for Linux. The average admin with the certification is going to be more qualified to administer RedHat Linux than the one without it.

If you've written a TCP stack from scratch you're not an average candidate (although I'm not sure how much value that skill is to an adminstrator), but the fact remains that the untested are less likely to be qualified on the average than the tested.

That's also why companies verify that you have received a degree: they believe in testing.

Having said all that I don't think that a university should put all their eggs in one basket. They shouldn't teach RedHat Linux exclusively any more than they should teach Unix exclusively.

Re:A question of goals

[westlake]

I'm afraid that they're going to train people to be the ReHhat equivalents of an MCSE - and we all know how respected they are in the 'real world.'

We also know how employable an MCSE can be in the 'real world.'

Re:A question of goals

[mikael]

Too right - it happens in the UK as well. I lost two job vacancies solely because I hadn't used VxWorks or UML in the past.

However, many of those companies who are "major local employers" who do a special deal with their local university, so that the Computer Science courses are custom designed for their needs.As a result, the unique combination of skills taught by these courses, means that they only look to those universities for software engineers, and it helps to "lock in" the graduates to those companies.

Re:A question of goals

[Daniel Dvorkin]

The problem is that most IT managers are techies who get promoted to management instead of good managers who got into tech, so they don't have the management skills and knowledge to realize that giving someone to a week to figure out the ins-and-outs of your particular software choice and it's config files is a lot easier then spending weeks or months looking for that "perfect" candidate.

Are you kidding? You really believe that PHB's are more likely to understand how techies work than techies are? Bullshit. It's people with "management education" who write these absurd "candidate must know how to do task A, B, and C in application X, Y, and Z" job requirements, and HR drones with a slightly lower level (if there is such a thing) of "business education" who pass people over for jobs because they don't have the right buzzwords on their resumes. Every techie I know understands that a competent programmer or sysadmin can figure out the company's way of doing things within a couple of weeks of being hired.

Re:A question of goals

[bombadillo]

Are they trying to teach people a specific platform, or are they trying to teach people concepts and theory.

Teaching is not there priority. Making more money is their priority.

1. Create a false mystique around having an MCSE.
2. Charge for certifcations
3. Laugh all the way to the bank.

I also ask which skills

[suitepotato]

Will they teach idiot dead-panning for the cameras for an IBM commercial or will they teach basics?

The majority of kids coming out of schools these days no zip about *nix. / is says "web site" to them and they only tend to think of \ and "dos" and "ick".

Despite their intentions in this, they should have an entire chapter of the course dedicated as "Google: How to Find People Who Know More Than You". No matter what else they teach in the course, they need to teach the most basic skill needed in *nix and that's how to pick the brains of others who've already blazed the trails and learn what they know.

Infinitely more valuable than any course's limited coverage. Although, teaching them not to take lightly the considerable power of rm would be a nice one. On behalf of support people official and unofficial tired of explaining where their entire disk went.

Re:I also ask which skills

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a developer at IBM. Occasionally I get assigned a coop to mentor. I recently got one that knew squat about the command line. All he ever used was Windows and IDEs. I was amazed that one could be a senior in CS and only know how to do dir on the command line. In the 6 months he was with us he never got comfortable with the command line. We tried, but he was just an incorrigible point and clicker.

Open source...eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

The spirit of opensource is to move away from monopoly (or duopoly) systems. Good CS courses ought to teach software development that will last beyond today's standards; of course, they should use the open source software available today to reinforce those ideas.

CS is about teaching the fundamentals that never change or change progressively(think computational complexity, or algorithmic analysis and good ways of thinking about software design).

Re:Open source...eh?

[conteXXt]

I wish I hadn't replied earlier in this thread.

I have mod points and this deserves one.

Yeah, but can they donate as expensive software?

[team99parody]

Microsoft's popular with clueless university admins (and politicians for state schools) because they donate zillions of dollars worth of software. If these guys donate Linux can they get as much credit by marking it up to the same huge numbers that clueless admins will be impressed by?

SuSE

[bogaboga]

Where is SuSE/Novell in all this? To me, it seems RedHat is taking all the [Linux] limelight. Packages for RedHat seem to be more numerous on the internet than those for SuSE. Certification is done on RedHat first...then SuSE follows.

None the less, Novell has taken some "right" steps by for example releasing YaST and other software as GPL and supporting Mono.

I suggest Novell provides hobbyist SuSE ISOs and probably starts shipping them like Ubuntu is doing. I also think adopting autopackage http://autopackage.org/ would do no harm to them.

Re:SuSE

[mrchaotica]

I'm sorry, I don't understand what "packages for RedHat" means. Shouldn't RedHat and SuSE use the same packages, since they're both Linux (and both RPM-based, although that shouldn't matter)?

Re:SuSE

[Anonymous Coward]

Visit http://rpmfind.net/linux/RPM/ to see what the parent meant. Surely, if you have been arround Linux for some time, you would know that though RedHat and SuSE use the same package format (RPM), packages prepared for SuSE will not necessarily install on RedHat and vice versa. Need more examples?

Re:SuSE

[Anonymous Coward]

(here comes the fanbot remarks)

ahhh but Gentoo beats them all (re: packages)

I have yet to encounter an application that I need/want/any other reason here that isn't already in or compatible with Gentoo.

binaries are highly overrated and when you get down to it, Gentoo is a blessing even if you don't use it. Gentoo users are vocal about bugs, compile errors (for those that run a distro that isn't rpm compatible) and kernels. Yes kernels. Who do you think the real early adopters of kernels are? Yes. Gentoo users.

Next time you meet a Gentoo user. Say "hi" and "thanks". your new kernel was directly assisted by the legions of source distro users.

Posted Anon, due to the hate for Gentoo users.

Re:SuSE

[LnxAddct]

Red Hat has all the limelight because they deserve it.
1) Red Hat and Fedora together have over 2 million active servers according to Netcraft, whereas Suse has under half a million.
2)Red Hat does a ton for the community, are experienced, and make a very easy to use distro while retaining the full power of linux.
3) Red Hat's core and only business is Linux. Novell just jumped on the Linux ship because it was failing in other areas, and if Novell sees another oppurtunity to make more money with something else, they'll jump off the linux ship and move on to whatver else they want. Red Hat's whole business is linux.
3) Read this.

Red Hat takes the initiative and keeps the community moving foward. They deserve everything that comes to them.
Regards,
Steve

Re:SuSE

[cpthowdy]

Where is SusE/Novell in all this?

Right here:
Novell Drives Linux into Academia with Training and Technology

Here is the first paragraph:
WALTHAM, Mass.--19 May 2005--Novell today launched a new introductory Linux training course designed for academic environments, giving educational institutions a powerful new tool to promote open source training and students a new option for learning Linux. Unique among Linux vendor offerings, Novell's new course maps directly to one of the most widely recognized vendor-neutral certifications in the Linux market, CompTIA®Linux+, newly updated for 2005.Novell also announced it will donate $1.5 million in SUSE LINUX software and training materials to educational institutions to help promote Linux adoption.

Re:SuSE

[cyberkahn]

SuSE/Novell has a terrible marketing department if they have one. It's the reason why Novell was beaten by Microsoft. You hardly ever see a Novell job anymore. Netware was/is an excellent product, but because their marketing sucked they suffered. In this case it is the same thing. I run both RH and Suse. I personally think Suse is the better distro, but Red Hat's name recognition is wider known by non-techies e.g. CEOs.

Re:SuSE

[Ratbert42]

I searched monster.com for "Novell". 904 entries.
I searched monster.com for "RedHat". 336 entries.

Re:SuSE

[Ratbert42]

RedHat hasn't been IBM's favorite lately. All the IBMers I deal with run SUSE now, but they're enterprise consultants. Maybe the education group is still a RedHat fan.

Re:SuSE

[cyberkahn]

Probably migrating from Novell to X.

Open Source Irony

[ndansmith]

The IBM Academic Initiative and Red Hat Academy plan to collaborate closely with teachers to build Linux skills and develop curriculum that will better help students prepare and compete for I.T. jobs.

Will the curriculum be "open source" as well?

Re:Open Source Irony

[CaymanIslandCarpedie]

Maybe a bit OT, but MIT has basically open sourced alot of thier stuff (pretty cool). MIT's OpenCourseWare

Re:Open Source Irony

[Anonymous Coward]

Its kinda sad though, instead of getting some eager MIT students a job to help pay for their education, they just outsourced the whole project to a company overseas.

OpenCourseWare is a nice idea, but in reality is just another attention grabbing PR stunt for the MIT administration. It is really nothing new.

In reality, many college professors already put their lecture notes and even copies of their lecture audio on their website.

disconnect

[soupdevil]

education and a lack of qualified candidates are the two issues with the greatest impact on their business

Then they should talk to the people screening candidates. They usually just scan for irrelevant buzzwords and listed experience that parrots the job listing.

Doubt It

[Vicissidude]

I sincerely doubt there is a lack of qualified candidates considering that IBM itself is currently going through a downsizing that will eliminate 13,000 positions.

This is more posturing for the sake of the politicians. If the industry complains enough, then the newspapers will pick up that complaining, and give the politicians an easy excuse to increase H1-B's in the future.

If there really were a shortage of IT workers, companies would not be downsizing, but rather hiring. They'd be going after everyone with even dubious credentials. Wages would not be stagnant or declining, but instead going through the roof. Considering that NONE of this is happening, I sincerely doubt that there is a shortage of workers. In fact, all this points to an oversupply of workers.

Re:Doubt It

[Anonymous Coward]

I sincerely doubt there is a lack of qualified candidates considering that IBM itself is currently going through a downsizing that will eliminate 13,000 positions.

A clue: when a company downsizes, do you think it eliminates it's most highly qualified people, or the other ones?

Re:Doubt It

[Vicissidude]

At 13,000 people, they are bringing out the chainsaw, not the pruning shears.

Considering the majority of these 13,000 people are in Europe, I'm assuming IBM is getting rid of them because of their expense. The Euro has gone through the roof compared to the dollar, so even hiring Americans have become cheap in comparison. But, they'll probably replace these people by hiring in India.

Re:Doubt It

[Anonymous Coward]

So are all these 13,000 jobs in IT or in other areas? Could be in customer service or something else.

Re:Doubt It

[chris_mahan]

The most qualified are already gone because they saw the writing on the wall and landed themselves sweet deals before the masses of ex-coworkers hit monster.

The less qualified get the axe.

The middle qualified are left to do the work of the most qualified (which they can't do) and the less-qualified (which they don't want to do) and they leave too, so the company rehires the less qualifed ones, because somebody has to be there to run the backup jobs.

Trust me. When you let go people en-massse, you keep only the ones that can't go anywhere else. You are better off laying all of them off.

Re:Doubt It

[Vicissidude]

Read about it yourself.

College

[Ride Jib]

While it is a nice notion, will it really be that beneficial? I am a few short months away from graduating with a B.S. in Computer Science, and I feel in no way prepared for the "real world" of computing.... which is why I'm going to give up my passion and get a real estate license.

Re:College

[mrchaotica]

Maybe you should take some vocational programming classes somewhere then, or get an internship or co-op job while you persue a master's degree.

Re:College

[Vicissidude]

When interest rates get high enough, the real estate market will dry up. Then, you'll be competing will all the other people that rushed to get real estate licenses.

Stick with CS. Remember that there is always a certain amount of work that will never be outsourced. There is always a need for developers, systems analysts, and program managers who know the local market.

Companies are learning the hard way that outsourcing is not all its cracked up to be. Once that idea gets drilled in their heads, the demand for CS folks will pick back up dramatically.

Super villians use it

[Anonymous Coward]

If super villians can use it I'm sure college kids can too.

Hmm...

[PaulBu]

not ... IBM-specific -- tools ... eclipse ...

You do realize that eclipse is one of the great OSS things that IBM gave to the world, right?

Paul B.

Re:Hmm...

[Anonymous Coward]

Whether or not he did, it has nothing to do with his point...

Re:Hmm...

[mrchaotica]

Yeah, but it's not used just with other IBM stuff.

RHCE

[alexborges]

In comes a bunch of trolls that cannot afford to buy an RHCE class to bash against the RHCE program.

Please please, just because YOU cant pay for it it doesnt mean its bad.

I just wanted to say this because its tipical in /. and im tired about it.

RHCE is the best certification track for linux available. Period.

Yes, im RHCE and i dont know more now than before i took the exam (which is a REALLY good, no nonesense, hands on test of skills -simple too, if you know wtf youre doing-).

But i think most knowledgeable but-not-guru level IT people would benefit if they took it and they wanted to move to Linux.

Re:RHCE

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not entirely sure what your problem is. A search reveals no instances of "RHCE" before yours.

Re:RHCE

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah...
Just wait and see them come in and bitch about how expensive it is and how clueless RHCE's are.

Re:RHCE

[B747SP]

RHCE is the best certification track for linux available. Period.

Did they teach you that in RHCE class?

Re:RHCE

[Anonymous Coward]

You sound like one of those guys who traded in his MCSE for a RHCE and after a whole two weeks of class lost out on a job to one of those damn hippies with the long hair who's only been hacking UNIX clones since day one.

Re:RHCE

[Anonymous Coward]

It's because of people like you that more and more places demand papers like rhce or mcse instead of insight and knowledge, lexical knowledge of parameters and commands instead of thorough system and networking understanding, and I could just go on.

Go IBM..

[essreenim]

They open up and loose jobs

Screw u MS

http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/05/23/217 257&tid=136&tid=98&tid=218

Re:Yeah, but can they donate as expensive software

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, having Red Hat busted for tax fraud will do wonders for Lunix...

Skills

[JLyle]

IBM announced Tuesday it will work with Red Hat to bring universities up to speed in teaching college students open source skills.

Sweet, because girls only want boyfriends who have great skills. You know, like open source skills, nunchuck skills, bowhunting skills, computer hacking skills...

Re:Skills

[quelrods]

Actually computer hacking skills can get you a girl. It is all about how you sell it. If you sell yourself as a geek, you're SOL. However, if they see hacking as this glamerous/dangerous activity they're interested. I speak from first hand experience for myself as well as noticing the same effect happening for a few friends.

Re:Skills

[Anonymous Coward]

(It's from Napoleon Dynamite.)

Where will this be taught?

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't a university education supposed to be about subjecting students to classical readings, languages, formal logic, mathematics, and literature? The fact that these programs will not be heard of in the world's leading institutions should give you pause to consider why anyone should want them.

Re:Where will this be taught?

[Anonymous Coward]

As an engineer married to a lawyer, I agree whole-heartedly. Why risk paying all that time and money to a college or university and come out with a certificate in the wrong field - as so many of our engineering and science graduates are experiencing today with the rush to outsource all of our tech jobs to India and China?

Our kids are going to major in Liberal Arts. Period.

Is it just me...

[Marko DeBeeste]

Or is this another fusillade in the eternal IBM vs M$ war? As far as Big Blue is concerned, Linux is just cannon fodder.

Microsoft slipping?

[part_of_you]

This is the way our tax dollars SHOULD be spent. On FREE stuff!

Colleges

[Universal Indicator]

Three years ago I went to a community college for the computer networking program. The program was 100% Microsoft, and 100% certification driven.

By the time I graduated they were just talking about adding a Linux+ course (still cert-driven of course).

There was no mention of Macintosh anywhere. In one of my final courses, Network Integration, I did a presentation on emulation and virtualization, including Mac stuff.

Does anyone think that networking with Mac OS X should be taught in college networking programs?

Re:Colleges

[Anonymous Coward]

no.

Re:Colleges

[Anonymous Coward]

if you need a class to learn how to make networks on specific platforms, you have no business in the field.

once you get the basic theory (the basic stuff covered in any networking topology class), you can just buy a damned book to learn how to get a machine on the network

Re:Colleges

[Universal Indicator]

You could also just buy a damned book and learn everything you want instead of going to college. Especially when the courses are based on certifications anyway.

Re:Colleges

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anyone think that networking with Mac OS X should be taught in college networking programs?

Of course not. No one needs to know how to network a Mac. That's because it just works.

*ducks*

Re:Colleges

[SirMentos]

There is a difference in the situations we are talking about here. There is absolutely nothing wrong with community colleges, but at least where i live, they usually serve as technical institutes... teaching specific skills and equipping people with a base to move on towards more education or to go do a specific type of job.

It is unrealistic to think that a large governmental organization such as a university is going to be able to diversify and teach all the different flavors of Nix to it's students. Having said that, my unversity (The University of Louisiana at Lafayette) actually focuses on theory in it's Comp Sci Curriculum and uses Nix as the platform to develop upon.. I don't know of any class that we offer that uses Windows as it's primary development environment. We have a larg Sun lab running Solaris and a dedicated Comp Sci lab dual booting between Windows 2000 and Fedora Core. The reasoning for this is simply that for administering a large environment, Red Hat is easier on the sysadmin (at least according to our sysadmin).

Now to move to the real issue, does this beratement with RedHat and Solaris and Windows prevent me from using any other Nix flavors? No! Our program teaches the building blocks for Operating Systems and Programming and Compilers and all the other main topics in Comp Sci, but at the undergraduate level they can't be expected to teach you everything about even one subject in the vast field of computing. By learning the theory you can then sit down with a manual or man page or set of documentation and then apply what you have learned to the real world.

My basic point is that you should not expect to learn everything, especially in our ever changing field, in school... but a good school will prepare you to learn for yourself once you have left the academic world and are out in the real world.

Open Source Skills? How about just Skills...

[WebHostingGuy]

Open Source skills are highly regarded by employers.

So, they are going to teach open source skills? What is that? And whom in the business world regards open source skills as highly regarded?

Don't businesses just hire the best person with the skills they want? Is there such a thing as an open source skill? I have heard of open source, but never of open source skills (except for this self promotion by Sun.

Now, being someone who deals in Linux, Unix and "gasp" Windows, I can tell you that knowledge of these operating systems, their software, their programming all help and are highly regarded. But just the phrase "open source skills"?

Let's be realistic here...there are no open source skills; there is just a conduit into the universities by claiming their students are missing out on fundamentals of the changing business world. And the person's whispering this into the Deans' ears are the ones who stand to gain the most. This is just a marketing approach to further propogate their market share (not that I am against it at all; that's what business is for). But, let's call it what it is:

Teaching students to use their products so the companies benefit later.

All I'm Saying is..

[Ride Jib]

All I'm trying to say is that a lot of schools have a lot more work to do, preparing students for real jobs, not just adding *nix classes to the curriculum.

Big suprise!!!!

[CaymanIslandCarpedie]

The company said its research of technology training at universities around the world have shown a need for more open-standards offerings

In related news MS said its research of technology traning at universities around the world have shown the need for more MS offerings, and Apple said the same thing about Apple offerings, and Sun said the same thing about Sun offerings, and Novell said the same thing about Novell offerings............

Re:get corporations out of the classroom

[Anonymous Coward]

You didn't do so well in the last two, did you?

Re:Yeah, but can they donate as expensive software

[supabeast!]

IBM and Red Hat can't pull that off because they make money selling support, not software licenses. When Microsoft "donates" licenses to schools it's generally just a huge quantity of OEM licenses and Active Directory seats with no support at all, so it costs Microsoft little to do so, and nothing if the school would not have had the money to purchase the software otherwise.

For IBM and Red Hat to donate their support services at a level that would effectively impact Microsoft's market share would cost them billions of dollars a year, particularly early on when all the admins, users, and teachers required constant hand-holding. In the long run it would only pay off if Linux took off in the consumer desktop market, because then the incoming staff and students would already be familiar with the OS. Since there are no indications that Linux will have an appreciable desktop market share any time soon, it's a pretty safe bet that IBM/Red Hat won't be giving their products to colleges any time soon.

'Donation' - IBM speak for 'Pwn3d'

[B747SP]

If these guys donate Linux can they get as much credit by marking it up to the same huge numbers that clueless admins will be impressed by

As much as your post was probably intended to be a "donate something free" joke, there's an element of truth in what you say.

I work for one of the big four Universities in Sydney, Australia and well, we got (and continue to be) royally screwed by these IBM 'donations'.

Let me put it clearly: There is NO donation, the equipment that IBM claim to donate is not free. The way IBM work on these deals is that they ponce about making announcements and press releases and say look look, we gave all these free computers to this University, aren't we good corporate citizens and on the other side, they're shoving exclusive access deals under the noses of the IT purchasing folks in the individual faculties that 'benefit' from the 'donations'.

Basically, what IBM really say is "agree to buy all of your IT infrastructure from us for the next n years, or the donation is off".

Since the big announcements have often already been made, you're trapped between a rock and a hard place.

From a technical administration and IT purchasing point of view in these instritutions, 'donation' is just IBM-speak for 'Pwn3d'.

Once IBM have pwn3d you, you're screwed. On simple factors: It takes me 10 working days to get a written quote out of IBM for a thinkpad. I can generate the same written quote for a Dell Lattitude online in minutes - Dell give me direct access to the corporate ordering system. It taks IBM six weeks to deliver a Thinkpad once I've ordered it, an equivalent Dell takes a maximum of ten days. If I call IBM for support, I get patched through to darkest India (this is large corporate support remember - I get better IBM support from google). Dell give me no-extra-charge Gold Client support, speaking to actual English speakers who are actually in the same city as me.

But no, IBM made a 'donation', so I've got to be the good corporate citizen and buy from IBM.

So don't for a minute be suckered by this good citizen stuff IBM would have you believe. IBM don't even piss about with that long term strategy of building product knowledge into kids who will buy out of familiarity when they reach positions where they make reccomending and buying decisions, no. IBM set out to pwn their victims short term, first generation, right now. The load schools with tech equipment and reap the benefits 10 years later is a relatively honourable approach that Apple pioneered in the early eighties, but IBM are way too impatient for that.

Fuckers.

Unwilling to invest in training

[boner]

When the CEOs of companies complain of lack of education and skills, what they are saying is that they cannot find people that have the right mix of skills for the job. Having worked for a large IT company for nearly ten years I have been involved in many interviews. When you enter an interview with a specific skillset in mind, most of the candidates will not be a good match, however, if you are willing to dig deeper and actually look at the way they think and approach problems, you will find people that could exceed your expectation.
Turning towards universities so that they can provide IT level classes to their graduates is nice for product placement and breeding familiarity. It is however totally useless if you want to teach them the specific skills that are so in demand.
Most companies work under operational constraints that limit the amount of time and money they can invest in training people so they are looking for the dark horse out there that has all the skills and is willing to work for a lower salary. Unfortunately, most all those companies are finding it extremely tough to (a) find the people and (b) keep them.
Once a company has found a person that can do trick A, they will make him do trick A all the time. Whenhe discusses his career development he will be limited to performing trick A over and over again. Not many people I know will stick around.

Having worked with the folks of IBM services, I have seen a large spectrum of people, some very good, some abysmal. Yet, in those projects no college graduate would have been any use with skills advertised in the article.. Why, because real IT problems are caused by real IT needs and are usually the result of decisions made a few years back, therefore an understanding of that type of environment is a requirement to being effective.

If universities really want to train their graduates on IT skills, then they should take all the money RH and IBM are willing to spend but also open a consultancy service for small and medium companies. That will expose students to the realities of IT, not some class. As we say in the group I work for, 'we are looking for the people with the scar tissue in the right places'.
And yes, we do hire out of university, but mostly PhDs

University != Vocational Training

[Anonymous Coward]

College CS programs are supposed to teach theory not how to use the most popular computing platforms.

I know this may sound rather arrogant and that most employers would probably prefer that you have "UNIX", "Advanced Java Programming", and "Software Engineering and Collaboration" on your transcript than "Automata", "Algorithims and Data Structures", and "Discrete Mathematics", but if you seriously are looking for real world experience, places like ITT Tech are designed to give it to you. There is no shame in getting this kind of education, but you are not a computer scientist for doing so.

A real computer scientist tinkers around with technology at home during his (or her)'s free time. Many campuses have "Linux Users Groups" or "Open Source Technology Users Groups" where students play with this stuff in their free time (and the profesors themselves get involved too). If you just want a piece of paper, thats all you're going to get.

Re:University != Vocational Training

[nate nice]

Thank you.

Having the theory that you mentioned is so much more important than actual API/Language/system knowledge because all these systems are built from it.

"A real computer scientist tinkers around with technology at home during his (or her)'s free time"

Exactly. Colleges are not there to give someone the right job skills for today. They teach you how to think, learn and provide the tools needed to master any related technology. I spent more time messing around with various technologies from Windows, Linux and OS X than I did doing homework and it has paid off big time.

Going to college is a two way street. They teach you the primitive skills and it is up to you to hone there skills as you please on your own time.

If the above poster wasted his time, maybe real estate is a better option. That bubble is going to crash soon too.

Good News

[richman555]

This is a good news, since Microsoft & Sun seem to have contributed alot to universities already. Im not sure to what extent 'open source' is taught in our schools today, but it should be presented to students. Im sure IBM has contributed before, but its probably been mostly with mainframes, DB2, or something legacy. We should be giving students a heavy dose of Linux, PHP, Python, MYSQL, even compiled c code. I might even recommend Java although it is not open sourced, yet.

The order of Layoffs

[ClosedSource]

1. Layoff people that challenge or otherwise annoy management.
2. Layoff people who are expensive
3. Layoff people who are working on poorly performing projects.
4. Layoff people who are weak performers
5. Layoff people who are good performers but not "buddies" of the founders.
6. Layoff the buddies
7. Close the doors.

As always, RTFM

[locokamil]

I honestly don't know why the hell people don't get it. You need to download new packages and run them in order to get certain things to work. Their brains have been turned to mush using Windows is my best guess.

And they don't really have much of an excuse anymore: it's getting to the stage where Linux is becoming pretty intuitive. I just installed the Hoary Hedghog release of Ubuntu last night-- and I must say that I'm really pleased. I was able to do everything I needed to do for today(compile C, Java and C++ programs, play Mp3s, and make a powerpoint presentation) after simply installing 2 packages from the Synaptic option. I ran a google search on accessing NTFS partitions, and I was able to access all of my Windows files as well. And I'd never used a Linux based system before this!

People need to start reading the f***ing manuals. And failing that, they need to start using google.

End transmission.

"education and a lack of qualified candidates

[Anonymous Coward]

are the two issues with the greatest impact on their business"

Then they should get themselves some schooling and learn that the sort of work they expect for the money thay want to exchange is not competitive with other ways to spend ones time.

Yes, I know they are talking about the "issue" (when did problems become issues, sounds so feminine and touchy feely) of candidate education. Well perhaps the good old apprentice program might do them some good. Used ot be an employer looked at what someone was capable of and hten offered them a bit of time to develop and hone their skills.

These days they want the perfect fit for peanuts. "20+ years experience in CLISP AI development on military logistics simulators complying with mil specs 88-222 and sux-2000, familiarity with black powder ordnance handling. Location Honolulu Hawaii. Salary $44,000/annum, no COLA, employer will not pay relocation expenses, candidates without TS-SCI clearance and former Peace Corps volunteers will not be considered."

I'm serious as possum stew. This is the sort of crap one sees in job postings. Tell them you've got it all but you SCI expired last week and they don't have courtesy to reply.

Impact that in your colon you dumbass HR empty suits...

IBM

[Anonymous Coward]

IBM could hire those college grads as contractors once they are done with school. Those students could work in the IBM Global Services devision making $14/hour

Yeah. Lack of qualified candidates at $0.32/Hr.

[bADlOGIN]

I'm getting real sick of companies complaining about lack of qualified candidates as they outsource jobs and refuse to pay living wages. You know what happens when you do that? All of a sudden, the qualified candidates go away or can no longer afford (literally) to keep current the qualifications that are oh so needed. It's going to be fun to see what happes to the first of the big Fortune 100 who go out of business due to misapplication of outsourcing that then have no way to recover. Of course if it's in my area of specialty, I'd be glad to consult for them at the low, low price of $400/hr while the ship sinks:)

You don't need a class on licensing and ethics

[Urusai]

FFS, if you can't figure these out on your own, you probably haven't figured out how to get that Logo turtle moving yet, either. BTW, ethics are taught in a different department; you know there is more to the school than the CS lab and the UC. It would be a good idea if ALL college graduates were required to have exposure to such non-trade knowledge domains as critical thinking, logic, history, and philosophy. Fancy that, a well-rounded education! You might even meet the ever-elusive "girl" in the other departments while you're out and about.

Re:You don't need a class on licensing and ethics

[BioCS.Nerd]

It would be a good idea if ALL college graduates were required to have exposure to such non-trade knowledge domains as critical thinking, logic, history, and philosophy. Fancy that, a well-rounded education! You might even meet the ever-elusive "girl" in the other departments while you're out and about.

That's the point, Urusai: to round education. Incorporate a little law (i.e. The background on copyrights, and licenses. Knowing how to read legalese is important) and a little philosophy (i.e. ethics). Regarding the latter, although one would assume such a thing is commonsense, it's clearly not the case given how many corporations and other faculties incorporate such a class in their program.

Jesus H. Christ...

[Anonymous Coward]

ENOUGH of the cut-and-paste trolling!!!

bad news

[dingfelder]

I have bad news for you. You HAVE been bamboozled :(

I will probably in the end be well served by the fact that DeVry has a (perhaps undeserved) very good reputation in the business world (or at least that's what they keep telling us).

I have worked for several large firms (all > 20,000 employees) and have been involved in hiring software developers at all of them. Without exception all considered real CS degrees vastly superior to schools like DeVry.

Sorry :(

Re:bad news

[miyako]

well, I'm just going to cling to the delusion that once I get into the "real" world the wheat will quickly be seperated from the chaff and it won't necessarily matter where my degree is from as much as what I can actually do.

Re:bad news

[dingfelder]

Assuming you can get hired, once you are in the door, it generally doesn't matter where you got your degree.

Just make sure you spend as much time as you can gaining theoretical knowledge (the WHY, rather than the HOW) on your own, since those schools tend to concentrate on the applications themselves, (i.e. "using java vs C++" instead of "designing data structures" or "designing efficient compilers etc.")

Once you are in the real world, your detailed knowledge of java swing APIs will give you a quick head start vs someone with a CS degree, but their theoretical knowledge may serve them well in the long haul (enabling them to learn other technologies faster and/or design more complicated or efficient algorithms).

If you take your DeVry skills and suppliment them with the theoretical knowledge, you get the best of both worlds.

Do what I do.

[Anonymous Coward]

Do what I do. Save all of your passwords in a TXT file, then 7zip it and give one really long, complex password to the 7z, and memorise that. Mine is EV6gcolc79i

Re:Yeah, but can they donate as expensive software

[westlake]

Microsoft's popular with clueless university admins (and politicians for state schools) because they donate zillions of dollars worth of software.

There isn't a school system, college or university, within ninety miles that hasn't found a ready market for day and evening courses in Microsoft software. This is something employers want.
Microsoft has strength at ground level.

I mean to say, these resources exist

[Urusai]

No need to reinvent them in the context of IT. Once you have the basis, you can clue yourself into the domain specifics easily--just like computer science/programming itself.

Re:SuSE/ Novell for students

[jessyleen]

Novell has this as a live program for students in India.

reading into the article

[Anonymous Coward]

>education and a lack of qualified candidates are the two issues with the greatest impact on their business.

1. Education - see #2 below

2. Lack of qualified candidates

This is the chicken and the egg problem in that an average IT job has overly specific skill/technology requirements when compared to other professions (accounting, management, sales, engineer).

Reengineering the HR aspect of IT will become vital to IBM and other large companies by 2008 as the cost to replace retiring experienced workers approaches millions of dollars in lost productivity and profits.

Re:Asshole Moderator

[Anonymous Coward]

You only need to read the first few paragraphs to see that the poster has no idea what GNOME is as he can't separate critics for the architecture (which has nothing to do with GUI issues implemented by programs), the core applications, 3rd party applications and general GUI related things. It is troll posting and good to post it offtopic.

Anonymous rant

[Anonymous Coward]

About 75 percent of a group of CEOs interviewed by IBM's Business Consulting Services said education and a lack of qualified candidates are the two issues with the greatest impact on their business.

I agree, but what would a CEO know about hiring educated and qualified personnel? Doesn't it usually fall to HR or middle management to do the hiring?

It's not that there aren't enough qualified professionals out there to fill positions. It's just that most get weeded out by the dim-bulbs actually doing the hiring.