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Windows costs less than Linux. A bit. Sometimes - MS study
By John Lettice
Posted: 03/12/2002 at 13:38 GMT


Windows 2000 servers are cheaper to run than Linux ones, sometimes, says an
IDC study which was by strange coincidence sponsored by Microsoft. The study
will come as welcome relief to Microsoft salespeople who have been parroting
the 'cheaper than Linux' line to general disbelief, but whether anyone else
will believe it is another matter.

Nor indeed should we take the study at anything like face value. IDC set
itself the task of measuring total cost of ownership of the two server
operating systems over a five year period, segmenting this into five areas
of server operation. Over a period of years one would naturally expect
differences in the purchase price of software and hardware to account for a
declining proportion of TCO, with support and staffing costs accounting for
an increasing proportion. And lo! This indeed is what IDC found.

However, erm, correct us if we're wrong but we were under the impression
that obstinate corporate customers who hung onto their Windows servers for a
whole five years without upgrading were more or less open source loving
commies in the eyes of Redmond. We haven't as yet seen the full study, but
suspect software upgrade costs, and the associated cost of new hardware
during the period, may not have been entirely factored in to the Windows
2000 server tab. Linux can have similar upgrade cycles if you want it to,
but there is really no similar hardware upgrade imperative if you do decide
to move up a version.

Aside from that, the study looks maybe a little stacked in other areas. It
finds the support and staffing costs for Linux are greater, largely because
Linux systems are more difficult to configure, manage and support than
Windows ones, this itself being because Windows has more mature, easy to use
management tools.

Which from a certain perspective, i.e. a Windows network manager's
perspective, is true.Large-scale, properly set up Windows networks with a
ton of hardware and GUI management tools all over the shop needn't cost a
lot in terms of machine minders, whereas an open source network without
these tools will need the requisite number of skilled geeks making
incantations over bash prompts. But this is comparing apples and pears, the
geeks will serve you better than the deskilled machine minders when
something goes badly wrong (which it will). In any event we doubt the
smooth-running easily-managed Windows network actually exists anywhere
outside of slideware.

More: http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/28408.html

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Shalom!

Rowland Croucher

http://www.pastornet.net.au/jmm
(8200+ articles)