Event

An open platform for Linux

The Novell SUSE series of events that began in Mumbai went on to Delhi and Bangalore. Here’s more on what happened at the two cities

In its attempt to educate its existing customers as well as prospective clients about the evolving role of Linux, Novell organised a multi-city event. We had covered the Mumbai leg in an earlier issue. Here we write about what happened at Delhi and Bangalore—there were different speakers in each city.

CIOs from different verticals like government, manufacturing, telco, and retail and enterprises attended the event in Delhi.

While rendering the inaugural speech, G K Maishi, Group GM, CRIS said, “CIOs should remain alert about new technologies from different vendors. They should take the initiative on behalf of their organisations to comply with regulations. The role of the CIO has evolved.”

He also urged the CIOs present at the event to accept the challenges faced by the operations side of the business and adopt new technologies.

Novell is attempting to increase awareness on Linux on the desktop, the enterprise desktop that is, and to this end it is trying to communicate the benefits of Desktop Linux to the Indian CIO community.

Paul Kangro, Head, Applied Technology Strategist, Novell Inc said, “CIOs face tough challenges while taking decisions on IT infrastructure in an organisation. Spiralling costs, interoperability challenges, growing security threats and lack of vendor choice are some of the problems faced by them. Open Enterprise will definitely enhance performance, reliability and world-class support on standards-based, open platforms.”

He also opined on the potential challenges the Open Enterprise would create and what kind of problems it could solve.

While informing about the purpose of organising such events, Revathy Kasturi, Managing Director, West Asia, Novell Inc said, “These events are platforms for us to share our experiences with prospective customers through direct interaction. Enterprise customers get a clear picture about the advantages of using Linux through these.”

Kangro stressed on the need for using Linux at the desktop level. He added that productivity is an important component of total cost of ownership. Productivity enhancements are an essential element in helping end-users become more efficient in executing tasks on the job. He claimed that Windows users can easily adapt to SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop thereby minimising re-training costs.

Paul Kangro, Head, Applied Technology Strategist, Novell Inc, stressing on the challenges CIOs face

G K Maishi, Group GM, CRIS, explaining his point of view at the meet

(L to R) Revathy Kasturi, Managing Director, West Asia, Novell Inc, in discussion with Shashi Kapoor, Head, Enterprise, Government and Telecom, Novell India, and a CIO attending the seminar

Strategic IT asset management

At Bangalore, Novell’s seminar aimed at highlighting the importance of strategic IT asset management. The seminar aimed at creating awareness on the criticality of identifying and managing important IT assets within an organisation. The seminar had the presence of Chief Information Officers and IT heads of some important enterprises.

Speaking at the event, Prof D Krishna Sunder, Head, Centre of ERP, IIM, Bangalore, said that behind an effective implementation of IT lies sound IT management and a CIO can go a long way in influencing and facilitating business strategy within an organisation. He also stressed that a CIO needs to examine how firms change over time (market dynamics) and it is imperative for them to effectively manage and train their technical staff in order to fully utilise available technology.

Kangro explained that it was important for an organisation to assess the IT assets that it had on hand. Before going in for any IT implementation, a CIO should know whether the new IT procurement will fit into the company’s present IT infrastructure.

Citing an example without naming the customer, he said that an enterprise had gone in for software licences without taking into account whether its present machines (hardware) would support the new software package. When it was found during the implementation that the company’s existing IT infrastructure could not do so, it had to scramble to upgrade its existing IT infrastructure and then deploy the software.

Kangro also informed that the risk of being audited due to the regulatory issues has never been greater. He said that it was important for enterprises to have clarity on what IT assets they have and effective management and control of their IT assets was an important aspect of complying with regulations.