Although I’d rather be  developing in Plone (opens new window), it really is just ‘back to my roots’ as I originally as a network/systems engineer. It is great, though, being able to apply the skills I’ve gained over the last 2-2.5 years (a big thanks to Paul at TheVirtual Ltd (opens new window) for his help here) to a role I am already familiar with. Whereas in the past I was only familiar with Microsoft tools and methodologies, now I am aware of a whole raft of opensource tools and approaches.

I can only speak from personal experience but I have found I am so much more efficient and productive with opensource tools. For example, I just implemented an instance of PloneCollectorNG (opens new window) to track IT support jobs. The result has been that staff are happier as they know their job is being cared for and they also receive notifications via email when their job is updated, the IT department is more organised as IT staff can be assigned jobs and all information related to the job can be stored inside PloneCollectorNG enabling IT personnel to be more autonomous. And I suppose the thing to top it all off is the software didn’t cost Management a thing!