O’Reilly Network: Heading for a Safe Harbor in a Rough Market

“In case you haven’t been watching the news lately,
massive downsizing (which is a euphemism for “firing” so that
shareholders get more “value” for the shares) is really in fashion
in 2001. Now, we all know that someone has to be there to run the
data centers, develop new products, and answer customer calls, but
in this downturn, many companies are being penny-wise and
pound-foolish in their layoff strategies and are slashing large
swaths through their technical staffs. These layoffs are driven by
a panic, and the layoffs themselves may do more to kill off
technology companies than poor sales or a slowing economy.

Anyone who has spent a long time in the computer business knows
that the only thing constant is radical change. There has never
been “stability” — things are always “feast, feast, feast” or
“famine, famine, famine.” The big question is how to make sure you
can survive market downturns until the good times come back again.
This being a Linux in the Enterprise column, I’ll present some
ideas on how to make sure that you’re still around, and how you can
do this by leveraging your Linux skills.”

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