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

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

[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