Welcome to B & M Bulletin, produced specifically for IT specialists. In this issue:
• New Year's resolution
• Tech View: Open Source
• Specialist Profile: S. Nicklaus
• B & M staff member profile - Account Manager Samantha Cruickshank
• Current vacancies
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A New Year's Resolution
Melanie Thompson, HR Manager at B & M, suggests one New Year's resolution that will yield results and which is really easy to keep
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...from Lapland of course!
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Where has 2007 gone! It seems like only yesterday we had to think about how many kilos of Brussels sprouts, the size of the turkey and the amount of mince pies and brandy butter we had to buy! Not to mention the annual New Year's resolutions we all seem to make with the best intentions - only to give in three weeks' later, shrugging our shoulders and giving ourselves a pat on the back for at least having a go! So why should this year be different?
Well, here is a New Year's resolution I would like you to think about - and in comparison to some, this one is really very easy. As one of the best-known providers of skills and services in our market, we have records for 1,460 active specialist on our database: 174 Storage Specialists, 125 CICS Systems Programmers, 156 AIX Specialists, 117 Solaris Specialists....and so on.
So what's my point? Well, with so many specialists in each area of expertise, you need to ensure that your CV stands out like London's Christmas illuminations if you want it to be noticed by customers with high-calibre contracting opportunities. And to showcase your skills effectively, your CV has to be up-to-date and stuffed with enough details to make a Christmas turkey jealous!
So when you want to get out of your usual New Year's resolution such as clearing out the garage or going to the gym more often, just log on, update your CV, press send to people@bmeurope.com and let Santa's little elves do the rest!
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all.
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It's Wide Open for Business
Paul Smith, B & M's Technical Manager, looks at how Open Source software has moved into the mainstream
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The author Gerald Weinberg observed, "If builders built houses the way programmers built programs, the first woodpecker to come along would destroy civilization." When this was written it certainly applied to a lot of software - much of which would eventually become Open Source. With the marketplace now supporting Open Source programs as full-blown commercial 'products' it seems that Weinberg's observations are no longer accurate.
The freeware operating system GNU (GNU is Not Unix) was first used in 1984. In 1991 Linus Torvalds lit the fuse of 'Linux Kernel' - a system which started slowly but which has now seen an explosion of usage all over the world. Early forms of open software such as these created the conditions for what has effectively become a massive development project, with notable proponents such as Apache, Redhat, The Open Software Foundation and Google.
In 1995, it seemed almost inevitable that Microsoft would dominate the high-end, PC-based server market. However a survey by Forrester in 2005 found that even over two years ago, 52 per cent of companies were replacing Windows servers with Linux servers - a trend that is continuing. Estimates by IDC show that the growth in Linux-based server sales has kept pace with Windows and that Linux-based machines accounted for 13.6 per cent of server revenues in the second quarter of 2007. And significantly, some of the organisations taking this approach are giants such as Google, Yahoo and Amazon.
What has made Open Source commercially viable is the funding of development by organisations such as Redhat, Eclipse, Google and IBM, which give Open Source the professional credibility and indemnity that business needs to feel comfortable. Anecdotally, Google seems to have the most creative approach, by encouraging development using the principle "a happy developer is a good developer".
But why would a large enterprise choose to head for 'Open' water? Reducing TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) is a major driving force. There are an increasing number of organisations whose developments are in the JBoss middleware environment, from where they port the finished product to WebSphere Application Server. This may not be the simplest route in the world technically speaking, but if you compare the cost of hundreds of thousands of pounds that it costs to license WebSphere on large systems with the few thousand it costs for JBoss licences, then this approach becomes easier to understand. An additional benefit is that Open Source models tend to have commonly agreed interfaces, making it easier to interconnect product suites - a factor for which IBM's proprietary MQ did much to pave the way.
It is now likely that commercial organisations will progressively adopt Open Source offerings, albeit from an accredited source.
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Specialist profile: S. Nicklaus, Senior Storage and Delivery Expert
S. Nicklaus - known to his workmates as Santa Claus - explains how his leadership skills and understanding of mass storage gives him the sledge over in-house staff
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Santa has been working on contract for a global logistics organisation for many years, following a period of working for Coca-Cola, where he was involved in supporting the marketing function.
In his current role, Santa works mainly from the company's headquarters in Lapland, but his job involves extensive travel. "I really enjoy getting out and about, although my partner does complain that I am rather grumpy whenever I have sleigh-lag."
At the logistics organisation, Santa is responsible for the migration of a large number of packets from the mainframe to the group's end-users, who are located all over the world. As he explains, there are challenges in the role, "Most of our customers only have a very narrow access channel into their premises, so I have to find ways to send our packets - which are often quite large - into their systems using the minimum of bandwidth".
Santa does not often meet with end-users face to face, preferring to work behind the scenes. As he explains, "Our team generally works at night so that we don't impact users' day-to-day business. Given that customers are sited all over the world, we can work with global timezones to ensure that we deliver the work overnight without disruption".
Santa lives with his long-term partner, Mary Christmas, in Lapland, where they spend their spare time looking after their herd of six reindeer.
But how does he relax after the busy periods? "Things usually go quiet over the summer, so I enjoy taking some time off sleeping and lazing around on a beach", he explains.
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Real Skills, Real people: B & M's Samantha Cruickshank
This month we profile Account Manager Samantha Cruickshank
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Samantha joined B & M as Account Manager in 2007 after spending three years in the telecommunications industry.
After studying languages at Oxford University, Samantha began her career at IBM where she was trained in the IBM portfolio and completed their sales training programme. This provided a solid basis for understanding customer business drivers and requirements as well as working with dynamic teams for the development of complex business solutions.
After some consideration, Samantha decided that she would like to make better use of her language skills and took a break from IT sales to complete a post-graduate certificate in education in Modern Languages. She went on to teach French and German, benefitting from the training in self-analysis and reflective development required of the modern teacher.
The increasing governmental demands on the teaching profession became too far removed from the core skills of teaching and Samantha left to join Ericsson. Here she consolidated the sales skills which she had developed at IBM and extended them through continued exposure to the commercial environment.
Working as an Account Manager, Samantha is now using her skills to develop B & M's business in the IT and Telecoms marketplace.
In her spare time, Samantha likes to go carriage driving and walking, which she does in all weathers. She also enjoys ballroom dancing and has taken some of the exams required for bronze standard.
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Current Vacancies
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B & M is taking briefings now for a number of new opportunities in the UK, Ireland and Continental Europe, starting in the New Year. If you have skills similar to our featured storage specialist this month, you may be interested in the current three-month vacancy for a Senior Mainframe Storage Manager with in-depth experience working with DFSMS, DFHSM, CA-1 and TLMS as well as exposure to IBM ESS, DS8000s and Brocade switches. The position is for a multi-national company based in London.
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