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Novell acknowledges shortage and is boosting online training, among other steps
SALT LAKE CITY -- Novell Inc.'s steady migration to Linux and open-source software as the underpinnings of its NetWare network operating system has been a success for Thomas Johnson, the CIO of Chicago-based Metropolitan Bank Group Inc.
Johnson, a Novell user since 1989, said the migration fit well with his company, which had already started using open-source software about a year before Novell's 2003 decision to move to Linux.
That success, however, has created new problems. Metropolitan Bank Group has trouble finding adequate training for its IT workers in Novell and open-source applications. The bank is also often hard-pressed to find qualified workers with adequate technical knowledge of the products.
It was a problem that had many attendees nodding in agreement at the annual Novell BrainShare 2008 conference, which is being held in the Salt Palace Convention Center.
"It's hard to find Linux and Novell experts," said Johnson, who described the problems during a panel discussion yesterday with five Novell customers. "Everybody's Microsoft everything," he said of most of the prospective talent pool he sees. "It's very weak on the Linux side. It's still kind of a maturing space. A lot of people out there don't have the business side in mind" when getting their training and certifications in some products at the expense of others, Johnson added.
Johnson said Novell needs to do more to encourage IT professionals to get Novell and open-source product experience to fill the needs of its customers.
It's hard to find Linux and Novell experts.
Thomas Johnson, CIO, Metropolitan Bank Group
"Within the Novell [open-source] community, it's great," he said. But finding qualified, skilled help to work inside his business is often a bust, Johnson said, adding that "when it comes to hiring people, that's been a challenge for us."
Five years ago, Novell took a giant leap when it announced that it would adopt Linux as its NetWare migration path in an effort to reinvent its business after a steady decline in its popularity in enterprise computing.
Less than seven months after that announcement, Novell took another big step, acquiring Linux vendor SUSE Linux AG to help move its strategy forward.
While those business-changing moves paid off for Novell in the marketplace over the past few years, the company is facing unintended consequences. It may not have been fully prepared to support those successes. Novell has 50,000 customers in 43 countries.
Novell said it's aware of the training problems and is working on them.
Michele Allen, Novell's director of training partners and certifications, said training availability is a major focus of the company this year.
"I wake up every morning thinking about this, I really do," Allen said. Novell has become more aggressive in providing training to its 6,000 partner companies, which in turn offer training to their customers.
One step Novell plans to take is to expand its online training. Novell's online program is high-level advanced technical training, Allen said, but beginning in the third quarter, Novell plans to broaden the online program to include nuts-and-bolts-level training for customers that want more opportunities for their workers, she said.
"We have to do something to give them another delivery method online," Allen said.
Bruce Rathbun, a systems engineer at Perot Systems Corp. who works under contract for Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Inc. in Boston, said he shares the same difficulties in finding IT workers with Novell and open-source experience.
One of the key problems, he said, is that even when he is able to find workers, he can't easily help them continue expanding their knowledge because it's difficult to find Novell training sessions in the Boston metropolitan area. That's ironic, he said, because Novell's headquarters in Waltham, Mass., is less than a 30-minute drive from the city.
"We cannot find the talent, yes," Rathbun said. "It's even harder to find the experience level." Rathbun's current IT help comes through two Novell-trained workers in India who provide assistance and expertise because qualified employees couldn't be found in the U.S., he said. The closest Novell training sessions he could find are in New York, but sending workers there is a "logistical nightmare," he said, citing the cost, among other factors. The next-closest sessions are in Maryland or outside Philadelphia, but "that is a major factor in the training budget," he said.
With 3,500 internal users and another 200,000 customers, clients and doctors externally, Rathbun said his organization would be in good shape if he had one more IT worker to help him maintain the systems. The health care provider removed its certification requirements with the goal of hiring applicants who can then work toward certification after they begin their jobs.
"In this situation, the bar has effectively been lowered in order to deal with it," Rathbun said.
One reason for the shortage of Novell-qualified IT help, he said, is that Novell's declining business share caused a large number of trained workers to switch to Microsoft certifications.
"A lot of my colleagues bailed and went to Microsoft [certifications]," he said. "Now that we're moving into Linux, the [shortage problem] is amplified. We need to find old-school Novell people who know Linux as well," Rathbun said.
Ryan Sinnwell, an enterprise systems analyst at The Weitz Co., a construction company in Des Moines, said finding Novell training for the company's IT staff is tough in his state.
Without adequate sessions in Iowa, workers have to travel many hours away to Omaha, Kansas City or Minneapolis to get training, he said. In some cases, the training comes from within as one IT worker mentors another, he said.
Right now, the company is not in a hiring mode, he said, but if it was, Weitz would likely give up on trying to find experienced workers, who are hard to find. "I think we'd be trying to find a good worker and would train them internally," Sinnwell said.
Nancy Cloete, the IT officer at the South African Heritage Resources Agency in Cape Town, said she faces the same difficulties. Only one business offers Novell training in Cape Town, and their course offerings are slim, she said. Because Cloete has an l IT staff of two people, she can't easily get Novell to come in to provide personalized training because it requires a minimum class size of 10 people. To meet the minimum class sizes, she has to find other interested companies to pool their training needs to invite Novell in to conduct sessions.
"We love Novell," Cloete said. "It's a very stable product." Asked if it wouldn't be easier to switch to another vendor to get more available training, she said she's not interested. The migration wouldn't be worth it, Cloete said, even for her small office and tiny 70-user group. "If it ain't broken, don't change," she said. "It works."
At least one Novell user at the conference said he isn't having such problems. Rusty Silvey, a network administrator for the Livingston Parish Public Schools in Livingston, La., outside Baton Rouge, said that it's easier in Louisiana because state government agencies are huge Novell users, so training opportunities are more available in response to the higher demand.
Silvey said he is able to obtain training through third-party providers that he finds by calling his Novell sales representatives. He said he also finds trained workers by attending the BrainShare conference each year and networking with other attendees.
