Top 15 Metro Areas for Social Media Marketing Jobs

Top 15 Metro Areas for Social Media Marketing Jobs

The demand for social media skills is growing fast. If you are entering the workforce for the first time (or want a new challenge) building up your social media marketing skills is a good strategy. Below are the 15 best-paying places to launch your career.

Social media marketing is an increasingly popular career choice among today's tech-savvy workforce. The value of these skills, which were virtually nonexistent a decade ago, grew 3.9 percent over the past two years, according to PayScale. With demand growing, those entering the workforce for the first time (and others who are seeking a new challenge) are quickly adopting the skills necessary for this field. These are the top 15 metropolitan areas and median salaries for a career in social media marketing.

San Francisco-San Mateo-Redwood City, Calif.
The highest paying jobs for social media marketing are located in – yep, you guessed it – San Francisco. The metropolitan area of San Francisco, San Mateo and Redwood City, Calif. commands the highest pay among all regions in the U.S. with a median compensation of $66,600. The 47 square miles of San Francisco are densely packed with 825,000 people living within the city’s borders as of 2012. The cost of living is 51.9 percent greater than the national average.

San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, Calif.
Employers in the heart of Silicon Valley – San Jose, Sunnyvale and Santa Clara, Calif. -- will typically pay $65,600 for employees with social media management skills. San Jose is the third largest city in California and tenth largest city in the country with a population approaching one million. The cost of living is 39.6 percent greater than the national average.

New York-Wayne-White Plains, N.Y.
The greater metropolitan area of New York comes in third with a typical pay of $62,400. More than 8.18 million people call New York City home and about half of the city’s inhabitants were born out of state or country. The income per capita is $30,498 while median household income stands at $50,285. The cost of living is 47.8 percent greater than the national average.

Seattle-Bellevue-Everett, Wash.
Employers clear across the continent in the metro area of Seattle pay an average of $61,600. Seattle’s population of 608,660 is growing well above the national average, jumping 8 percent from 2000 to 2012. Income per capita is $40,868 while median household income stands at $60,665.The cost of living is 21.6 percent greater than the national average.

Boston-Quincy, Mass.
Workers in Boston and surrounding areas enjoy the fifth highest compensation for social media in the country, bringing home an average salary of $60,300. The income per capita in Boston is $31,856 while median household income stands at $50,684. More than 617,000 people call Boston home. The cost of living is 32.4 percent greater than the national average.

Los Angeles-Long Beach-Glendale, Calif.
America’s second most populated metro area, Los Angeles, commands an average salary of $60,100 for jobs that require social media skills. The “City of Angels” sprawls across 469 square miles with a population of about 3.8 million people. The income per capita in Los Angeles is $27,620 with a median household income of $49,138.The cost of living is 27 percent greater than the national average.

Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, D.C./Va./Md./W.V.
Employers based in the metro area of our nation’s capital typically pay $60,000 for a career in social media. Income per capita is among the highest in the nation at $42,078 with a median household income of $58,526. The city’s population of 601,723 is growing steadily, jumping 5.2 percent from 2000 to 2012.The cost of living is 17.6 percent greater than the national average.

Santa Ana-Anaheim-Irvine, Calif.
Social media workers in the region surrounding Santa Ana, Anaheim and Irvine, Calif. earn an average of $59,200. Santa Ana’s population has shrunk over the past decade to 324,528 people, but other areas of this metropolis like Irvine are growing like wildfire. Irvine’s population jumped 48.5 percent from 2000 to 2012, ending 2013 with 212,375 inhabitants. The cost of living is 19.2 percent greater than the national average.

Dallas-Plano-Irving, Texas
Texas comes up big, rounding out the top 10 metro areas for social media jobs with employees making $58,800 on average in the Dallas area. The population of Dallas has remained relatively flat since the turn of the century with almost 1.2 million people calling the city home as of 2013. Income per capita comes in less than $1,000 above the national average at $26,716 while median household income stands at $41,682. The cost of living is 8.3 percent less than the national average.

Houston-Baytown-Sugar Land, Texas
Employers in "Space City" pay an average salary of $57,000 for a position in social media. The city's population of 2.1 million as of 2013 carries an income per capita just barely above the national average at $25,927 and median household income of $42,962. The cost of living is 17.1 percent less than the national average.

Chicago-Naperville-Joliet, Ill.
Workers with social media skills in the greater Chicago area earn an average salary of $56,700. Despite being the third largest city in the country, Chicago is shrinking with nearly 2.7 million people now calling the city home. The income per capita in the "Windy City" is $27,148 while median household income stands at $46,877. The cost of living is 4.1 percent greater than the national average.

Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, Minn./Wisc.
Employees with social media marketing skills in the metropolitan area of "Twin Cities" take home an average salary of $56,600. The population of Minneapolis is stagnant at 382,578 people. Income per capita is $29,551 while median household income stands at $46,075.The cost of living is 1.3 percent greater than the national average.

Philadelphia, Pa.
Social media skills in the "City of Brotherly Love" will typically bring home a salary of $56,300. Population in Philadelphia has been relatively flat the past decade, growing just 0.6 percent to about 1.53 million people. The city's income per capita is well below the national average at $21,117 while median household income is even lower overall at just $36,251. The cost of living is 0.9 percent greater than the national average.

San Diego-Carlsbad-San Marcos, Calif.
People are flocking to sunny San Diego, boosting the city's population 6.9 percent from 2000 to 2012 to 1.3 million as of last year. Jobs requiring social media skills pay an average salary of $56,200. The city’s income per capita and median household income is also high at $32,553 and $62,480, respectively. The cost of living is 25.7 percent greater than the national average.

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First look: Amazon's new Fire Phone

No, really!
Amazon has finally released its own smartphone. The Fire Phone, which runs on Amazon's Android-based Fire OS 3.5 and incorporates a host of features designed to make shopping your life easier, debuted Wednesday in a Seattle event hosted by Jeff Bezos. Here's a look at what's been brewing behind the scenes for all this time.

The look of the thing
At its core, the Fire Phone isn’t much different than any other high-end handset on the market right now – 2.2GHz quad-core processor, 2GB RAM, 4.7-inch 720p screen, 32GB of base storage, and so on. But Amazon has gone out of its way to include some unique bells and whistles, as we’ll see.

Rubberized construction
Given that we’ve had glass, plastic, and metal phones already, it was inevitable that Amazon would do its best to set the Fire Phone apart with a unique rubberized build. Oh, and it also blends in Gorilla Glass, stainless steel, and aluminum. So it’s got most of the build bases covered, really.

Cool camera
While it’s hardly unique, the Fire Phone’s 13MP main shooter is still impressive, packing HDR and optical image stabilization capabilities, along with a wide aperture lens. The coolest part of the camera, however, might be the…

Unlimited cloud photo storage
Yeah. Unlimited storage in Amazon's cloud for your photos and videos, automatically backed up wirelessly and available on other Fire devices and Cloud Drive apps, may be the main eyebrow-raiser in the Fire Phone's imaging suite.

Mayday button
The Mayday feature introduced in the latest models of the Kindle Fire tablet line has made it to the Fire Phone, allowing users to summon live Amazon tech support via video link at the touch of a button.

Firefly
This will likely be Amazon's most talked-about Fire Phone feature. Take a picture of a product, and Amazon searches for pricing and availability. It also recognizes music, movies, and TV shows from their audio, can capture phone numbers and email addresses from advertisements, and rubs your back when you're stressed. (Last thing may not be true.)

Dynamic perspective
The Fire Phone uses four small but sophisticated cameras, located at each corner of the device's front, to track head movements and gestures, allowing users to exercise a degree of one-handed control over the device.

A free year of Amazon Prime
Users can get a free year of Amazon's Prime service if they pre-order soon enough – the device will ship July 25, and pre-orders are already open. Tough luck if you're not an AT&T fan, though – the Fire Phone is an AT&T exclusive. The 32GB model will cost you $200 with the usual two-year contract, or $650 without a subsidy.

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10 most powerful PaaS companies

Platform-as-a-service is the least mature of the major cloud services categories. There are multiple types of PaaS, and vendors are playing in more than one sub-category, so it’s not easy to tell the players without a scorecard. Here are 10 companies that have emerged as leaders in the PaaS market.

Amazon Web Services
Just like Jack planting his magic beans in solid ground, Amazon has built its application runtime PaaS, Amazon Web Service (AWS) Elastic Beanstalk (now in beta), on the solid footing of the very popular Infrastructure as a Service platform, EC2. And while the retailer turned cloud provider doesn’t necessary have a loyal developer following, it’s continually rolling out new tools to entice them. So far the portfolio includes AWS Toolkit for Eclipse (a plug-in for the Eclipse Java Integrated Development Environment), AWS CloudFormation (a service that lets developers create and provision Amazon resources), several cloud-based database options and SDKs for Android and Apple mobile machines, ERuby, Java, PH and .Net.

LongJump
LongJump landed in the PaaS fray very early on in 2008. It has steadily added new features and developer-centric support to attract a customer following that the company says is 600 strong at this point. Long Jump’s biggest coup came in the form of an AT&T partnership announced last November in which the telco rolled out a simplified PaaS service geared toward tech savvy business folks that has the LongJump PaaS stack at its core. Forrester analyst Stefan Reid said this deal could pave the way for more licensing deals for the company.

Microsoft
There have been rumblings that Microsoft’s 2-year-old Azure PaaS play is not getting the traction the company had hoped. Microsoft’s PaaS portfolio includes the Windows Azure computing environment for applications and persistent storage for both structured and unstructured data; Windows Azure AppFabric a range of services that connects users and on-premises applications to cloud-hosted applications, manages authentication, and implements data management, and SQL Azure, a cloud database service. All Windows centric, of course, but analysts say that Microsoft is making noises about opening that up a bit. And they say you can’t discount the power Microsoft has in its army of .Net developers waiting in the wings to see what the cloud means for them.

IBM
IBM is a relatively late entry into the PaaS market as it only rolled out SmartCloud Application Services PaaS last October. But the company has long-standing ties to the corporate enterprise and this platform – based on the long-trusted WebSphere middleware -- allows enterprises to build Java-based apps that can run in the public cloud, called IBM Smart Cloud Enterprise, or on premise. IBM is looking to keep their customers in a comfort zone while pushing them out to the cloud.

RedHat
Linux lovers are uniting behind the thought of an open source PaaS like RedHat’s OpenShift. And industry watchers are intrigued by the prospect of portable applications that can be pulled from one infrastructure platform whose fees or contingencies become arduous and easily placed on another one without breakage. It simply remains to be seen how big an ecosystem RedHat can build around OpenShift and how useful it will be corporate developers.

Cloud Foundry
Cloud Foundry is the open source PaaS that was spearheaded in early 2011 by VMware and around which the company plans to build a future commercial product. As with Red Hat’s initiative, VMware is attracting developers who want an open platform that lets them build in the language they want and run on the IaaS they like. According to company officials, the project is gaining significant traction because over 2,100 developers are actively following the changes in the open source code. Analysts have speculated that AppFog, a start-up already offering a comprehensive PaaS based on the Cloud Foundry code, is ripe for the picking should the commercial side of CloudFoundry need a boost.

Google
Google claims it’s got 200,000 developers building applications on top of its App Engine PaaS. That’s in spite of a rate hike that really got their base riled up back in the September, giving all kinds of fodder to competing products that claim to be both more open and more affordable. But Google doesn’t seem to be bothered and is forging ahead with an upgrade that supports a premium level of service in which customers will receive a 99.95 uptime service-level agreement.

CloudBees
CloudBees was first out of the gate with a Java-based PaaS that gave enterprises an easy way to move existing Java applications into the cloud. RUN@cloud is the application runtime side of the CloudBees’ PaaS story, providing traditional application server functionality for web, Java and Spring applications. CloudBees customers choose their underlying IaaS or private cloud. Applications running on RUN@cloud can be built using traditional Java EE development tools or using CloudBees’ second PaaS offering called, DEV@cloud. DEV@cloud is a cloud-based development, build and test environment. CloudBees’ power lies in its understanding that there are lots of sunk costs in existing Java applications from which enterprises are loath to walk away.

Engine Yard
Engine Yard is one of the leading PaaS players for Ruby on Rails and PHP developers. These two development languages are most often associated with cool, new greenfield applications running in the cloud. Engine yard, founded in 2006 and still privately held, has a client list that includes Nike, AOL, Apple, Disney, and MTV.

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Is Cisco Back (as an enterprise security leader)?

Sourcefire, architecture, and services place Cisco in the catbird seat for emerging enterprise cybersecurity requirements if Cisco remains aggressive

It wasn't too long ago that Cisco was a dominant force in information security technology. The company was a market leader in firewalls, IDS/IPS, and email security and was actively pushing products for endpoint security and SIEM as well as security "blades" for Catalyst switches. Heck, Cisco even articulated a bold vision of "self-defending networks" with security policy, enforcement, and intelligence all baked into the network.

Somewhere around 2008 however, Cisco security went into a prolonged slump. Cisco security products didn't offer the performance of rivals like Crossbeam (now Blue Coat), Juniper, or McAfee. Cisco missed markets like next-generation firewalls, opening the door for savvy startups like FireEye, Palo Alto Networks, and Stonesoft. Cisco products such as the Cisco Security Agent (Okena) and MARS (Protego) were abject failures and discontinued by the company. Finally, Cisco's security team itself imploded as management and engineering leaders fled San Jose for greener valley pastures.

Cisco recognized its cybersecurity death spiral and began executing on a comeback strategy around 2011, building a new team, innovating, and acquiring a market leader in Sourcefire. Based upon what I saw the week at CiscoLive, I believe that the company has turned a corner. Cisco can now return to a leadership role in enterprise security technology because:

1. Its security architecture is just about ready for primetime. Cisco deserves kudos for the way it integrated Sourcefire products and people into its security division. For example, Cisco has a "FireAMP everywhere" strategy that will place advanced malware detection technology on Cisco email and web security products and various endpoint devices. Additionally, Cisco is actively filling architecture holes with acquisitions like ThreatGRID for network and cloud "sandboxing" to detect malware threats. Finally, Cisco has momentum in other areas like TrustSec and ISE. Its soon-to-be-released pxGrid completes these granular network access control offerings with a middleware repository for publish-and-subscribe data about endpoints and users. All of the puzzle pieces are in place today or arriving soon.

2. Cisco is investing in services. New security requirements are challenging to all organizations - even those with deep security skills and resources. Cisco recognizes this gap and is building a global services organization to offer help. As of now the professional services staff is relatively small but it is highly-skilled and growing. In the meantime, Cisco is also jumping into the managed security services market with both feet. For example, it now offers a big data security analytics managed service for incident detection, investigations, and forensics. While Cisco uses a physical Hadoop cluster on the customer premise, the service is fully managed by Cisco security analysts and customers pay for it on an annual subscription basis. Cisco will continue to expand upon managed security solutions moving forward.

3. Cisco is well positioned to align security with IT transformation. As a large IT provider, Cisco is in the middle of numerous IT initiatives around cloud computing, data center transformation, mobile computing, and the Internet of Things (IoT). This gives Cisco a great opportunity to integrate its security portfolio everywhere. For example, Cisco can work with large customers to add Application-Centric Infrastructure (ACI) functionality to their data center networks. Once customers are comfortable with Cisco's software-based network control for configuration, provisioning, and segmentation, Cisco can introduce a host of L4-7 security functionality as part of an overall transformation project. Given its role in these other ongoing IT initiatives, Cisco has a clear advantage over pure-play security technology vendors.

Aside from these advances, Cisco also (author's comment: Finally!) created an overlay salesforce focused on security sales alone. This could give Cisco the right skill set to sell security architecture technologies and services at the CISO level.

In my humble opinion, Cisco is moving in the right direction and the company certainly has the resources to continue to acquire point products and invest in its organization. That said, Cisco still has some work ahead. To continue on the comeback trail, Cisco must:

1. Compete at the product and solution layer. CISOs want to build enterprise security architectures, but this transition will take time as point tools are replaced with new security technology components built for integration. This means that vendors will need best-of-breed tactical products, integration middleware, and project management skills to build an architecture over time. As a networking vendor, Cisco doesn't have much street credibility in areas like endpoint security, middleware, or security analytics - especially since it walked away from some of these areas over the last few years, hanging some of its customers out to dry. Cisco's done a lot of work on the product side, now it must convince the market that it offers leading architectural and services skills for the long-term. Finally, Cisco needs to be able to work at the CISO level on detailed security architecture implementation plans that fit their security, financial, and industry needs.

2. Play the "open" card. Those of us with grey hair remember Cisco's "embrace and extend" attitude toward industry standards. Cisco was onboard as long as it controlled the standard, tweaked them for its own feature set, and maintained proprietary ownership of the code. Surprisingly, Cisco has become much more flexible about opening up its security software strategy. For example, Cisco's acquisition of Sourcefire made the company the steward of SNORT and ClamAV and it continues to encourage and support each community. Cisco's big data security analytics services is based upon open source tools like Hadoop, MapR, and Mahout that can be customized by customers with open source tools. Finally, Cisco is an active member of the Trusted Computing Group (TCG) and is working to align its pxGrid with future plans for IF-MAP. Cisco could greatly benefit by going further and becoming a visible champion of open security standards henceforth. To do so, Cisco should promote promoting standards, become a visible contributor to open source projects, trumpet the community benefits of open security standards, and encourage other vendors to join in.

3. Deliver a real security management portal. Cisco's Achilles heel has always been management software that was too complex, required too many management consoles, and was geared toward CCIEs with CLI chops. This simply won't fly for an integrated enterprise security architecture. Without a simple but powerful GUI-based management portal for central command-and-control, Cisco product and architecture progress will all go for naught.

Cisco still faces real competition as FireEye, IBM, McAfee, Palo Alto Networks, and Trend Micro are building their own enterprise security architectures that span networks and endpoints. Others like HP and Symantec could easily acquire their way in. To truly succeed, Cisco must remain humble, execute flawlessly, and continue to recruit top talent. A difficult but achievable strategy.

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12 (FREE!) apps to turn Windows Phone 8 into an IT tool

Test network devices, track trouble tickets, remote control PCs, deploy phone apps, more
IT pros who carry a Windows Phone already know it can be used to access content stored in their SkyDrive cloud accounts. But the handset can become a key part of their everyday toolbox with the addition of some apps that are available for download from the Windows Phone Store. They can meet the needs of network admins, help desk staff, developers and more as they move about during the workday. And the best thing about this sampling is they're all available for free.

Network Utilities
This handy tool performs ping, traceroute and TCP port checks, and can check WHOIS and DNS records. It also contains network calculators for subnets, CIDR and Wildcard and supports IP address geolocation.

AzureAppSpy
Businesses using Microsoft's Azure cloud storage services will want someone on staff with this app. It tracks the progress of the deployment of Azure cloud services and keeps an eye on how well cloud applications are performing. When traffic spikes, it can recommend when to add extra instances so performance remains high. It also enables Windows Azure Diagnostics (WAD), which displays daily charts of performance counters, flags errors in event logs and creates lists of active deployments. AzureAppSpy communicates with WAD infrastructure over HTTPS and doesn't require Azure Management portal certificate sharing.

Zendesk
This support-agent software enables real-time access to existing Zendesk accounts through Windows Phones, making it possible to track user requests for help. This includes searching and viewing trouble tickets and comments as well as providing tools to send pre-written responses to frequently asked questions. Live-tile views of tickets can be pinned to the phone's start screen for easy reference.

Linux Cheatsheet
This app is designed to help admins find the proper syntax for Linux commands that they recall but aren't sure about the syntax. The app also includes an explanation of commands that users might not be familiar with.

Code Search
Developers who need to access source code while away from their primary computer can use Code Search to reach it instead. The app enables searching for a particular file and then search for the relevant code within it as granularly as finding a particular line of code. Navigation tools include syntax highlighting, string searching and seeking a line number. Code Search requires an agent on the PC used for developing.

ConString
When IT pros need connection strings, ConString can provide them for SQL Server, Access, Oracle, DB2, Firebird, SQLite and MySQL. It's pretty straightforward.

CIDR Calculator
Commonly used classless inter-domain routing (CIDR) helps ease the load on routers required to maintain routing tables for large numbers of networks. CIDR Calculator enables CIDR network calculations using IP address, subnet mask, mask bits, maximum required IP addresses and maximum required subnets.

TeamViewer
TeamViewer allows users to remotely control Mac, Windows and Linux machines from Windows phones. The app includes a contacts list to show whether the computers are online. It employs AES 256-bit session encryption as well as 1024-bit RSA key encryption.

RSA SecurID
Make your Windows Phone device a convenient, cost-effective RSA SecurID authenticator. RSA SecurID two-factor authentication is based on something you have (an authenticator) and something you know (a PIN) -- providing a much more reliable level of user authentication than reusable, easy-to-guess passwords. This app, when provided with a software token, generates one-time passwords for accessing network resources.

Speedtest.net
Speedtest.net performs connection testing to find Internet download and upload speeds from anywhere in the world using Ookla's worldwide network. Results return in under 30 seconds, and the app produces graphs to show consistency of connections. It can be used as a tool to verify SLA compliance.

PC Remote
PC Remote allows remote control of machines running TeamViewer Server. From within the app users can conduct YouTube searches, control Windows Media Center, view and play songs on Zune and remotely control PowerPoint.

AirWatch MDM Agent
This device management solution enables securing, monitoring, managing and supporting smartphones used by corporate employees. N.B.: The agent works only in conjunction with the AirWatch console.

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The mobile world's whipping post deserves a fresh look, thanks to some compelling new features

6 reasons you'll love Windows Phone 8.1
Microsoft has struggled to get the smartphone right, with four widely panned versions of Windows Phone since 2010. But finally, its fifth version -- Windows Phone 8.1, due out later this year -- delivers something people will really want: A simple but capable smartphone that has a slick interface.

Believe me, this is a real change of pace for Windows Phone.
Highlighted here are six capabilities that are breathing new life into Windows Phone -- and that should get you to take a fresh look at Microsoft's revamped smartphone.

Pull-out calendar view
One of my favorite Windows Phone 8.1 features is how it displays calendar information for a specific day when in week or month view. Tap a day, and its details pull out from the view, giving you a handy snapshot of the day's events within the greater context of your weekly or monthly calendar.

Weather and traffic in your calendar
It's a small thing, but nicely done: You can set Windows Phone to show the weather in your calendar via icons if you let it access your location information.

Likewise, Windows Phone clones one of iOS 7's most useful additions: The ability to receive a head's-up as to when you should leave for an appointment based on traffic conditions.

Support for Apple's iCloud
The truth is that even Windows users favor the iPad as their tablets, and many have Macs at home as well. Microsoft now embraces that multiplatform reality and supports Apple's iCloud accounts for email, calendars, and contacts, so you can more easily integrate the Apple part of your technology world with Windows Phone. Even better, changes are updated bidirectionally, so you can really use iCloud without worry.

Cortana voice assistant
In 2011, Apple's Siri was the talk of the town, an electronic assistant that could interpret free-form voice queries and respond with relevant information most of the time. Although Android had voice-based search at the time, it was nothing like Siri.

Since then, Android has caught up. And with Windows Phone 8.1, Microsoft introduces Cortana -- a surprisingly good voice response technology, capable of handling free-form requests as accurately as Siri and Google Now. Although technically still in beta, Cortana comes off as a polished final product, not a first try.

Notifications center
Windows Phone's live tiles were intended to be your go-to source for notifications at a glance. The truth is, few apps use them well -- or even at all. With Windows Phone 8.1, Microsoft clones the Notification Center from iOS, adding quick-access controls à la Android for accessing notifications and most networking controls from any app. Just pull down from the top of the screen to open the new Action Center.

Tip: If you want to get your music and video playback controls, you won't find them here. Instead, push on the volume rocker to open a separate control tray for that.

Local phone search
Windows Phone also joins iOS and Android in letting you search for information on your smartphone, not just on the Web. Use the labels at the top of the search screen to switch among search targets such as the Web or your phone.

InfoWorld scores the top smartphones and tablets
In the market for a new smartphone or tablet? InfoWorld has rated the top contenders suitable for business users. Check out how each rates in InfoWorld's mobile scorecard.

And if you're looking for productivity apps for your tablet, check out InfoWorld's scorecard for the best iPad office apps and our recommendations for the best Android productivity apps.

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Open sources software’s are expensive than Microsoft

Microsoft cheaper to use than open source software, UK CIO says

British government says every time they compare FOSS to MSFT, Redmond wins.

A UK government CIO says that every time government citizens evaluate open source and Microsoft products, Microsoft products forever come out cheaper in the long run.

Jos Creese, CIO of the Hampshire County Council, told Britain's "Computing" publication that part of the cause is that most staff are already familiar with Microsoft products and that Microsoft has been flexible and more helpful.

"Microsoft has been flexible and obliging in the means we apply their products to progress the action of our frontline services, and this helps to de-risk ongoing cost," he told the publication. "The tip is that the true charge is in the totality cost of ownership and exploitation, not just the license cost."

Creese went on to say he didn't have a particular bias about open source over Microsoft, but proprietary solutions from Microsoft or any other commercial software vendor "need to justify themselves and to work doubly hard to have flexible business models to help us further our aims."

He approved that there are troubles on together sides. In some cases, central government has developed an undue dependence on a few big suppliers, which makes it hard to be confident about getting the best value out of the deal.

On the other hand, he is leery of depending on a small firm, and Red Hat aside, there aren't that many large, economically hard firms in open source like Oracle, SAP, and Microsoft. Smaller firms often offer the greatest innovation, but there is a risk in agreeing to a significant deal with a smaller player.

"There's a huge dependency for a large organization using a small organization. [You need] to be mindful of the risk that they can't handle the scale and complexity, or that the product may need adaptation to work with our infrastructure," said Creese.

I've heard this argue before. Open source is cheaper in gaining costs not easy to support over the long run. Part of it is FOSS's DIY ethos, and bless you guys for being able to debug and recompile a complete app or distro of Linux, but not everyone is that smart.

The extra problem is the lack of support from vendors or third parties. IBM has done what no one else has the power to do. 20 after Linus first tossed his creation on the Internet for all to use, we still don't have an open source equivalent to Microsoft or Oracle. Don't say that's a good thing because that's only seeing it from one side. Business users will demand support levels that FOSS vendors can't provide. That's why we have yet to see an open source Oracle.

The part that saddens me is that reading Creese's interview makes it clear he has more of a clue about technology than pretty much anyone we have in office on this side of the pond.

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