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Education Businesses IBM Red Hat Software IT

IBM and Red Hat Offer College Prep 136

Posted by Zonk from the penguins-101 dept.
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."
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IBM and Red Hat Offer College Prep More

IBM and Red Hat Offer College Prep

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  • Which skills? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Agelmar ( 205181 ) * on Tuesday May 24, 2005 @05:18PM (#12627631)
    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".
    • 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.
      • 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.
    • Maybe they're talking about the (apparently) large number of "colleges" (like DeVry) that teach only Microsoft-oriented programming?
      • 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.
      • 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.

        • 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 syst

          • 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 lea
            • 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 :(

              • 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.
                • 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
      • 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

    • Re:Which skills? (Score:1, Funny)

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

    • 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
  • 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.

  • About time... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by glamslam ( 535995 ) on Tuesday May 24, 2005 @05:21PM (#12627656)
    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.

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

      Please?
    • 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?
      • 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 an

  • My Opinion (Score:3, Interesting)

    by BioCS.Nerd ( 847372 ) on Tuesday May 24, 2005 @05:22PM (#12627674) Homepage
    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"
    • 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.
    • 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

      • 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)

  • Spot the difference? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by D-Cypell ( 446534 )
    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?
    • 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.

    • 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.
    • 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

  • A question of goals (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ProfaneBaby ( 821276 ) on Tuesday May 24, 2005 @05:24PM (#12627693)
    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.'
    • 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 (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Skapare ( 16644 )

      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 gettin

    • Re:A question of goals (Score:1, Insightful)

      by 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

      • Re:A question of goals (Score:2, Insightful)

        by 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.
    • 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 sec

    • Re:A question of goals (Score:4, Interesting)

      by supabeast! ( 84658 ) on Tuesday May 24, 2005 @05:58PM (#12628026)
      "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.
      • 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? Bulls
    • 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

    • Re:A question of goals (Score:5, Insightful)

      by kfg ( 145172 ) on Tuesday May 24, 2005 @06:01PM (#12628068)
      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
    • "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 certif
    • 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.'

    • 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 compani
    • 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.
  • 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 an

  • Yeah, but can they donate as expensive software? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by team99parody ( 880782 ) on Tuesday May 24, 2005 @05:27PM (#12627711) Homepage
    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?
    • 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

    • 'Donation' - IBM speak for 'Pwn3d' (Score:4, Informative)

      by B747SP ( 179471 ) <slashdot@selfabusedelephant.com> on Tuesday May 24, 2005 @06:05PM (#12628145)
      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.

    • 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.

  • 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://auto [autopackage.org]

    • 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 (Score:2, Insightful)

      by LnxAddct ( 679316 )
      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 [netcraft.com], 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 e

    • Re:SuSE (Score:2, Informative)

      by cpthowdy ( 609034 )
      Where is SusE/Novell in all this?

      Right here:
      Novell Drives Linux into Academia with Training and Technology [novell.com]

      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 vendo
    • 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.
    • 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.
    • Novell has this [gnomebangalore.org] as a live program for students in India.

  • Open Source Irony (Score:2, Interesting)

    by ndansmith ( 582590 )
    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?

  • 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 (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Vicissidude ( 878310 )
    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 ev

  • College (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Ride Jib ( 879374 )
    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.
    • 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.
    • 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,
    • 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.

    • University != Vocational Training (Score:1, Insightful)

      by 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 [itt-tech.edu] are designed to give it to you. There is no shame
      • 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

  • Super villians use it (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    If super villians [thehumorarchives.com] can use it I'm sure college kids can too.

  • RHCE (Score:2, Interesting)

    by alexborges ( 313924 )
    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 knowledg
    • RHCE is the best certification track for linux available. Period.

      Did they teach you that in RHCE class?

  • Skills (Score:2, Funny)

    by JLyle ( 267134 )
    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...
    • 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.

  • Where will this be taught? (Score:1, Insightful)

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

  • Colleges (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Universal Indicator ( 626874 )
    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 prog

    • Re:Colleges (Score:1, Insightful)

      by 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
    • 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. H
  • 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 [opensource.org], but never of open source skills (except for this self promotion by Sun [networktimes.co.za].

    Now, being someone who deals in Linux, Unix and "gasp" Windows, I can tell you that knowled

  • 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............

  • Unwilling to invest in training (Score:4, Insightful)

    by boner ( 27505 ) on Tuesday May 24, 2005 @06:14PM (#12628261)
    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
  • 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.

  • "education and a lack of qualified candidates (Score:1, Interesting)

    by 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 capab
  • 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

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