Is IBM Finally Addressing The Education Gap?

Via Peter O'Kelly, here's an excerpt from a Wall Street Journal article about a new IBM initiative in the education community. Access to the full article requires a WSJ subscription, which I don't have.

The excerpt notes that IBM is offering "free access to IBM software and course-development assistance to any university interested in broadening its curricula". I sure hope that it's not just universities that IBM is targeting. Somebody... please!... tell me that the WSJ was being a little bit snooty by using that particular word! Helping universities produce well-rounded CS graduates is all well and good, but that's not where IBM has the most work to do. Many university programs already teach Java and other open technologies quite well.

The real gap is in Microsoft's dominance of the non-degree programs at community colleges, technical colleges, adult education programs, and the like. The fact that every IT manager in the US (and possibly elsewhere in the world) gets several mailings a month from local schools that offer Microsoft-oriented courses. and often certification programs, has a huge impact on the market. Every hiring manager knows that it's going to be easy to find people who have already trained themselves on Microsoft technology, and this perception is a big part of what keeps a lot of people from considering alternatives. I've heard things like "that all sounds great, but we're already trained on Microsoft" and "Sure, I'd like to move away from Microsoft, but where am I going to find people I can afford who can run Domino for me?" too many times. I've talked about this with fairly senior people at IBM several times. I hope that the WSJ article was using the wrong word.