I work in IT distribution and spend all day talking to IT resellers throughout the UK. It seems to me that one of the reasons Linux isn't taking off with small business is that most IT companies don't have a clue about how it works so ...

I'm thinking about starting a Linux Consultancy as a way of giving IT support companies throughout the UK a way to introduce Linux to their customers without having to train their own staff until they can see a financial reason to do so.

Most small IT companies have a handful of engineers who help look after the PC's and networks of their local small businesses. One or two engineers might have a passing interest in Linux, but most won't be. If these companies don't feel confident that they want to help their local business by offering a much more secure, cheaper and more robust system, then who will? No one, because the first port of call of most small business owners who hear about Linux will be their local IT company. Catch 22.

I'm thinking that there must be a way of giving these IT companies the confidence to offer Linux as a credible solution. Perhaps offering them Linux support over the phone or with local engineers. I Haven't quite worked out that bit yet!

What I would love to get is some feedback from anyone who has either started their own Linux based company to offer this kind of support or feedback of what sort of problems scare IT companies away from Linux.

Obviously, the issue of liability will crop up, but in fairness, that is usually an excuse used to justify a weaker reason such as the lack of technical expertise!

I'm looking forward to hear from you.

F0ul_Oli

I don't think IT companies are scared away from Linux. IT companies are usually run and staffed by geeks whose idea of a fun afternoon is editting a configuation file, writing a script, or analyzing packet statistics while ordering pizza over the web.

It's the CUSTOMERS who are scared away from Linux because it's still a very geeky OS. Ditch the bird - Linux's logo should be a propellor beanie.

I recently installed SuSE Pro on a PC and I've been struggling for days to get Samba properly configured so XP can see the Linux filesystem, and to get Linux to talk to my network print server. I don't mind it that much because my day job is software engineer, I have 16 fingers so I can count easily in hex, and I rather enjoy having a headache. But my mother-in law, my dentist, my lawyer, my sister, and my wife, who are all normal, educated, highly intelligent people, would NEVER put up with stuff like this! With the exception of my wife, who's a former C++ programmer (who else would marry me?) none of them know what "files", "directories", or "permissions" are - OR WANT TO. They're happy with Windows.

Linux is a truly great server OS. I bought it mainly to learn more about Apache. And Linux makes a much better OS for embedded uses (e.g., Tivo) than Windows. I think we should be happy with that.

As I've discovered playing with Samba, at its core, Linux is for geeks. Dressed up in a user-friendly GUI to make it look like Windows, it's like a sober frat-boy in a suit. It's only a matter of time before its true nature bursts out. When it does we should embrace it and quit the charade of trying to be Windows.

or it should be a pocket protector..........LOL