I work for a consulting firm that is almost completely a Windows shop. That’s fine, because Windows (as fallible as it is) pays the bills. But even though Windows is the primary player, it doesn’t mean that Linux should be left out of the game. In fact, it would behoove all consulting agencies to pick up an employee with Linux skills. Why? Because being able to offer Linux gives you an edge over your competition.

How to sell clients on Linux

In such a Windows-centric world, pitching Linux to clients who are not tech savvy is not as hard as you might think — you just have to know the product and know where (and how) the product fits into the client’s infrastructure.

Let clients try Linux

If a client wants to play around with Linux to see if it will fit their needs, a really good approach is to give the client a Live CD of a distribution and tell them to boot it up. The Live instance will not change their current OS, and they could get easily get an idea if Linux will work. You can take this one step further by rolling your own Live CD (with a tool such as SUSE Studio) and adding your branding to the desktop, as well as to applications you think the client will want and/or need.

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