[wplug] OSS market?

[Christopher DeMarco]

Hi  all...  I'm a  Pittsburgh  native and a  Penn State  alum, and I'm
preparing to move back "home" after a  year in California and three in
Malaysia.  My   goal  is to support  myself  doing   OSS consulting  -
GNU/Linux  HA,  small business Internet infrastructure (DNS/www/mail),
small business  security (antivirus,  firewalls, security  audits) and
general IT work.  As part of  my anti-starvation research, I'd like to
put the following questions to the list:

1.  How's  the private-sector OSS   outlook in Western PA?   I presume
there's a  lot of OSS at  CMU and Pitt, but what  about in the private
sector?  Does GNU/Linux have a strong presence in the datacenter?  How
about  in small  businesses' IT  organizations -  are Qmail and  Samba
servers popular?  An alternate way  of phrasing the question would  be
whether the market is   saturated with OSS  providers  - in KL  it's a
pretty small pond at  present (but growing); am  I gonna come back and
find that OSS shops are a dime-a-dozen?

2.  Who  are  the existing players  in  the  small-medium business OSS
space?  Who are the significant local OSS companies, and are there any
big players?  I'd  consider, for example, VA Linux  to  be a "big  OSS
company".   Outside  of OSS,   who are   the  chief providers   of  IT
outsourcing?   One  big group in  Silicon  Valley (I've never actually
done IT in  Pittsburgh!)  was Taos,  who had their  fingers in many of
the  biggest pies during  the Bubble.  Who  are the big names in local
IT services?

3.  Are there any local companies with OSS  products?  Think Ximian in
Boston, or Progeny in Indianapolis,  or the alternate dimension of San
Francisco.  Anybody  building interesting products  using OSS, outside
of the hallowed and weird halls of the universities?

4.  How're the  job market and  IT sector  in  general doing?  Are  IT
budgets still ultra-low, or have  things picked up a  bit?  All I hear
about the US job market  is the continual  moaning of the  unemployed;
what's the general situation in the Pittsburgh IT market?

5. Even more general: what are the hot areas (physical and industrial)
right now  for  business growth?  Obviously  downtown  Pgh  (15219) is
where  a lot  of  the action is,   but are there  areas  in Cranberry,
Whitehall, Oakland, etc  where there is a lot  of  growth?  Industry-,
uh, -wise, what are the    big  areas for growth? Biotech?    Consumer
electronics? Whole foods?

Alright, that's enough for now... feel free to devolve into LucidvsFSF
or PowerPCvsIntel at any point...

And thanks in advance for the input!


-- 
% You are in a maze of twisty passages, all alike.
Christopher DeMarco <cdemarco at fastmail.fm>          
PGP public key ID 0x2E76CF5C @ keyserver.mit.edu
+6013 389 5658