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Open-Source Software Industry Faces Skill Crunch

A couple of decades back, open source technology was considered to be the realm of geeks, but today it is the norm, given that it has reduced development cost of IT-enablement across enterprises considerably and forcing even the big guns to open up their source code for anyone to inspect, modify and enhance. However, things aren’t looking all that rosy for open source software development and one of the reasons is the abject lack of skills in the industry. CXOToday caught up with Peter Lees, Chief Technologist at SUSE to discuss the road ahead for the industry.

SUSE being the largest independent Open Source software in the world is keen to work with Indian government in its digital transformation exercise, given that it has become central to key sectors such as Manufacturing, BFSI, High-Performance Computing (HPC), Automotive and Retail.

“Greater flexibility, freedom of choice with no vendor lock-in, enormous cost benefit and greater security are the driving forces behind adoption of open source. The government sector has multiple departments, using manifold applications for which Linux is the most cost-effective and optimal choice for operating system. They have realized that they require enterprise grade open source in order to maintain stability, sustainability, and security,” Peter says.

However, the major challenge of an open source vendor in India is the absence of requisite skills. Open source needs a certain skill-set to be able to use it optimally. Its adoption can help in reducing the time-consumed to build an app only if the user learns the right tools to use it. In addition.

SUSE invests in training partner programs for areas of new and existing technologies to help organizations adapt and innovate along these advancing technologies. They also have a dedicated team focused on the development of training content relevant to SUSE partners and customers.

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