09.29.01
Self-teaching and Corporate Software
One of the problems in the computer field that I’ve seen of late is the divide between software that’s available in Open Source terms and those that must be purchased in terms of site licenses and require large budgets to install and learn.
There’s a case to be made for creating and selling software that is large and expensive. Robust, networked, team oriented software is notoriously difficult to develop. Often this software will have gone through years of development with large teams of developers that rightfully ought to be paid for their labor.
This software ends up being very expensive and generally this leads to it only being available in large companies. It also means that only the staff of those companies have access to that software, and generally only when they are in the company’s network/environment. Take Lotus Notes for example. Here is a large, complex tool that is affordable and makes sense only for larger corporations.
But the problem is that most of the people who are really ‘into’ their occupation in the computer field don’t just learn while they are at their job. It’s been my experience that those people who bring the full force of their concentration and effort into the field often devote much of the time outside of their work hours to technical endeavors. These projects range from home networks to public works (http://www.freegeek.org comes to mind.) that benefit the community as well as provide the individual with valuable hands-on time with technology.
This time outside of the work place is what really separates the dedicated computer enthusiasts.
But this outside time is limited by money and access to platforms. Want to know why Linux continues to grow in popularity in the computer industry, despite the best intentions of the entrenched software providers? Because geeks can run it at home. Want to know why wireless networking is gaining such momentum? Because geeks can play with it at home.
These are great tools and they are used by dedicated people who really grasp the technology and it’s limitations.
All of this ends when the software becomes too expensive and to costly to install. The kind of environment that is required to learn, play and experiment with software generally doesn’t exist in the corporate world. Workers must be sent away for week and multi-week training courses to learn the basics of difficult software.
Where is the sense in this? Why not leverage the knowledge that the die-hard computer geek is already seeking, already bringing to the plate? It would make more sense to use a set of tools that are within the grasp of the dedicated enthusiast, allowing them to bootstrap, grow and refine their own learning, which they already have an innate drive to expand.
To follow this idea is a win-win situation. I shake my fist and yell, “Why not?”