Red Hat Offers Live Tech Support in Russian

A few years ago, if you were in Russia and you were deploying Linux, the odds were that you were probably rolling your own kernel and you knew more about compiling software than the average programmer in the Western world. (That is an exaggeration - but probably only a slight one.) But in the IT and business climate of today's Russia, the odds that someone installing Linux has no idea about compiling software - and no desire to learn those skills, either - is a virtual guarantee. And while a great many of Russia's citizens speak English - particularly those in government, education, and technical jobs - the average Russian citizen is probably not proficient enough in English to get tech support for some pesky problem they are having with their Linux setup.

And that is why Red Hat has decided it is high time to roll out technical support to Russian customers in their own languages. Wener Knoblich, vice president of the EMEA operation at Red Hat, says that demand for Linux and related open source technologies is exploding in Central Europe, Eastern Europe, and Russia, which is why local language support is so important. By setting up a local Russian tech support operation, customers in Russia will not only get to speak their own language as they cope with tech support, but they will also be able to dial a local phone number to get that tech support. Russian tech support will be available at the end of September.