"Michael Yu Chak Tin was running the CPU Training
Centre, a Hong Kong-based computer training school that offered
Windows, Unix, and Linux certifications. "Almost all of our courses
were full, with the exception of Linux," Tin says. He set out to
discover why, and his research produced some interesting results.
"Most enterprises are reluctant to deploy Linux as an
alternative to Win NT, because of issues such as user interface,
hardware compatibility and support costs ... etc," he says. "To
them, deploying Linux requires a separate full time staff, which is
not cost effective. They'd rather spend a little more to buy NT, so
that less support and training cost is introduced. With this, we
started to think about some 'crazy,' yet exciting, new ideas."
One thing led to another, and after exploring the efficiency of
other Linux business models, Tin decided the free operating
system's strength lay in custom configurations. "The beauty of
Linux is the possibility of developing our own custom version for
specific functions without the need to start developing a system
from scratch. And to be able to do this, general Linux admin skills
won't do the trick."
