The news has been abuzz about Google’s upcoming OS. Many people have been arguing reasons for and against the system, its viability in such a market, and, if the OS is successful, even the morality of the company who may be trusted with even more private information than it already has. Well, here’s another reason for Chrome OS: it could bring more jobs in the area of Linux IT.With the worldwide recession, people in just about every industry are feeling or at least witnessing the effects in some way. According to CV Screen, a recruitment agency, the IT industry overall has lost 55% of its jobs in the last twelve months. On the other hand, open source jobs have been able to weather the storm a little easier; Linux IT jobs have only dropped by about 30% in that same twelve months, meaning that Linux IT seems to be the better way to go if one intends on keeping his or her occupation.
Even still, 30% is a large cut, and there are many successful Linux IT personnel who simply had to be let go from their respective companies. However, CV Screen predicts that Google’s Chrome OS will help Linux IT to rebound. Not only is Google already looking for more software engineers experienced in Linux, but the industry as a whole will begin hiring more. With open source-related jobs already better off than other tech-related occupations, the introduction of another open source product from one of the most known companies in the world may just help bring more jobs to the scene.
From the mouth of Matthew Iveson, director of specialist IT recruitment at CV Screen:
In what has been a tough marketplace, we have seen demand for open source technologies such as PHP, Linux, and MySQL hold up fairly well, and it is one area where we have been regularly placing candidates. We anticipate that the long term impact will be an increased demand for IT professionals who are required to support Linux based systems. This is likely to mean that Linux professionals with qualifications such as LCP, LCE or RHCE will be much sought after by employers.
What it sounds like to me is that Chrome OS is only a drop– or maybe a gallon jug (or liter for those in Europe and elsewhere)– in a vast lake. As popular as it may become, open source is already spread vastly and is used by many companies especially for servers and other IT-related needs. Chrome OS, with all of its probable pros and cons, can only help in the job scene: more software engineers, more customer support, more Linux-friendly geeks in Office Depot to help people decide whether to choose the Windows or the Chrome netbook. That’s all hypothetical, of course. What if Chrome OS netbooks aren’t pushed into retail stores as much as one might think? What if the stores don’t hire Linux-friendly geeks and the general populace buys Windows because it’s what they know? I suppose we’ll see in a few years.
so much speculation on so little information. From what we know I think this is way too early to talk about IT job: we don’t know what’s the target market.
Competition is always a good thing though and I’d like to see more opening in IT
Edited 2009-07-17 19:00 UTC
Agreed. Chrome OS is currently nothing more than an announcement.
By this rate, Chrome OS will invent the warpdrive by next Tuesday.
Wait… you mean I shouldn’t have just setup an entire LLC and website devoted to doing nothing more than consulting for ChromeOS-based IT contracts?
😉
Chrome OS already invented the warp drive in the future and went back in time so that Gene Roddenberry could put it on Star Trek.
Chrome OS will be the cat’s pajamas – in fact, it will be the very apex of feline sleepwear.
I havn’t seen an influx of Unix Developers when OS X was released. Just a bunch of Mac Developers… I expect the same with Chrome. They won’t be Linux Developers but Chrome Developers. And that is if chrome is successful and not just an other Linux Distribution. IF Crome OS is just an other Linux Distribution it may end up just like Corel did a decade ago.
Don’t want to learn linux admin. Don’t care to learn it. Have tried it…hate command-line. Want to spend time outside of work doing things other than becoming super-uber linux geek with alphabet soup after my name.
OK, that settles it then, as the world revolves around you.
No one is forcing you to use the command line, no one is forcing you to become a Linux admin; do us all a favour and run the post and ask, “does this make me look like a dumb ass” before subjecting the net to your random brain farts.
Unfortunately I don’t have the expertise to do this… but wouldn’t it be great to have a plugin for comment systems that would read your text and judge whether it makes you look like a complete moron, and then warns you before you hit “submit” Of course that could be great for some laughs if there were some bugs in it that added things to a Comment to make someone look MORE like a moron, instead of less
Apparently you don’t want to be a Windows admin either. Some of the more powerful tools for Windows are run from the command line.
Google just *might* add a couple of things to Linux distributions that are apparently amiss (even in Ubuntu), such as compatibility with a truly *HUGE* range of hardware configurations; a database of device drivers on par with XP available on the level when it “just works” from the get-go.
Google might use its name to get more people on the Linux side; those who are not exactly command-line enthusiasts and makefile warriors. If Google succeeds in creating a true ‘buzz’ around Chrome OS, that will mean a lot, because so many people are just after the ‘cool’ stuff – and those people can (and will) contribute too.
There is a chance it will happen as well as it might just not. Kudos to google for taking that chance.
It’s probably not in google’s interest to support all imaginable hardware configurations. Hardware is becoming more and more commoditized anyways.
If anything google might have enough clout to be able to define some hardware certification standards for Chrome OS. And hopefully hardware vendors will start to take linux drivers more seriously for peripherals.
google already said they going to launch os on web. but they never thought what about people who dont have internet in some countries and even if they have internet how about the speed will they able to open pages…