"We issue this press release partly to inform the business community on our existing Linux courses and the support we offer via our training solutions on open source software," says AfriBiz MD, Kin Le Roux. "Additionally, this press release is written to announce our viewpoint on FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt) against Linux and open source in general as that seems to be in the order of the day, lately."
Le Roux continues: "AfriBiz is known for their Linux training courses, like the beginner courses through to the much more advanced security and programming courses. Our Linux 101 course is very popular indeed and all our students walk out very confident. What also contributes to these confident students is the opportunity we give our students to tap into our online resource database, free of charge for a three-month period. Our next Linux 101 (beginners) course starts the first week in August for Pretoria and Johannesburg students.
"It is not very well known that we also embark on general open source training. We assist companies to train their staff in open source software usage when they make the move to the open source arena.
"There is still a misunderstanding on what open source is. Some companies are still misled to believe that open source is just Linux. That is not true. Plenty of open source software runs on most well known operating systems, including Microsoft Windows. A good example would be the open office package that can replace other expensive office software."
AfriBiz plays a vital role to companies that change, for example, their office software in two ways. First, we will implement the new open source software, and secondly, we will train the staff on using this new office software. Training staff that already know the basics of office software is easily done in less then one day, because the open source software is very similar to what they normally use."
Le Roux concludes: "I would like to take this opportunity to speak out on FUD, seeing that there is a lot of that around these days. FUD is a method used to discredit opposition by means of cleverly using gossip and rumours to change the view of others on a specific subject or product. PR should be the convincing of another by means of true facts on their own product line and then get support on those facts. FUD is used by those who know that the true facts on their products are not good enough to change a viewpoint and then use FUD to discredit others to mask their own shortfalls.
"Linux and indeed the open source arena is targeted constantly with FUD. These techniques definitely have an influence but this is counteracted by filling the gossip and rumours with the truth. Truth always wins over FUD. In fact, that is the only way to handle FUD and that is the only way Linux and open source can recover every time from FUD."
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