Linux Costing More Than M$?

[Kamikaze_Badger]

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserversyst...s/opencost.mspx

[O(V)eGA_l2el)]

Sounds like a "hoax" to me; how can open-source material costs more than "money-hungry" Microsoft? <_<

[asus]

well.. they see it this way, it cost more money to have trained professionls maniging a linux server because linux is a much harder OS to work with. And they say the downtime of a linux server and the cost of maintaing it is more.. that is very true.. linux servers in my experence seem to go down alot ?? IDK why.. but the good old microsoft has a much better uptime.. "the 2000 and 2003 servers"

[Muddy]

IM a windows fan but the only think i can see that costs more is the training. lol

[Reidhardt]

No, I can see where it could end up costing more. This isn't the home PC they're talking about. In which case, yeah, it'd be bull ****.

[Mad Cow]

From what I read, it made sense to me, but IDK if those numbers are really accurate or not. If the numbers are right, I think M$ has a good point. JMO

[CmpFreak88]

The only reason that is, is because there aren't many people out there trained for Linux as there are those trained for Microsoft. Windows is more widespread and therefore they have lots of resources competing for business bringing down prices, unlike Linux. Makes sense...

[asus]

The only reason that is, is because there aren't many people out there trained for Linux as there are those trained for Microsoft. Windows is more widespread and therefore they have lots of resources competing for business bringing down prices, unlike Linux. Makes sense...

true true.. now itt it only training in linux because whatever you learn in linux is 100x easyer in windows.. anyway.. hear is my reason

 

there is an opertunity cost.. pay more money for a more secure network, and server, or spend less money but have a slitley less secure network

[cybergrunt69]

There have been a lot of these "surveys" and analysis done by 3-rd party firms, and most of them say that MS is cheaper than linux in the corporate world. I didn't RTFM entirely, but I'm guessing that it's another of the same.

 

The biggest problem that I have with these is that MS paid these firms to do the survey - it initially looks like they didn't do that this time, but I very seriously doubt it. I absolutely cannot trust the results of a company that evaluates software when they are paid to do so by the vendor. Period.

 

Here's a challenge for you - look at your favorite hosting providor (or your own lan) and see how much the retail price of the MS product is that you're using vs. the cost of a similiar open-source Linux product. This would include the server-class OS, as well as database, crm, reporting, portal, etc. I don't think you could justify that huge cost - especially when used in the corporate environment, when these prices must be paid MANY times over.

 

Also, they note that they don't factor in the price of the actual software while doing this study.

 

[edit] Here's a link to previous "independant" studies that were paid for by MS.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/158...research27.html

Edited October 19, 2004 by cybergrunt69

[Aristotle]

It didn't discuss implementation of a totally free OS and software. I don't think anyone would mind paying a bit more for linux training and planning considering that you really have to know what you are doing to become certified (unlike MS certifications that could let almost anyone pass...).

 

If your Linux server keeps crashing, it means it is probably configured wrong. Compared to the amount of restarts I used to have to make a day compared with Linux are significant. With Windows, maybe eight times a day. With Linux, I may have to restart once every two days. I really work my hardware and OS resources so that's why I was so suprised about how well Linux ran when I first installed it. I am now a 99% Linux user (1% FreeBSD).

 

The one argument that the report was trying to make about mainstream OpenSource is that now anyone can write an application and distribute it freely. This can pose a threat if the software is not well written (which happens sometimes). However, a little extra research and testing can usually filter out the bad ones from the good ones.

 

The risks between Open Source and Commercial are different. Usually, OpenSource is pretty well kept. With commercial applications, it might be a month or more before a hole is patched or a bug fixed.

 

Take a look at the case studies. Some of the businesses that were originally using Linux and later switched were not really in a position to implement Linux in the first place.

[Dignan]

Another major factor is that the end price of Linux is cheaper in an all Linux environment. They don't mention that until the very last part of the article with the foot notes. Migration problems are mostly on the MS end anyway, trying to downplay the ability to move to an open source linux based server setup is technically a smart play because they have less people moving over because of conversion costs. But it's one thing I do like to see is that a majority of places they interviewed said that they were or plan on integrating and converting to open source software.

It's not an argument over if Linux is a cheaper product to buy, but with TCO total cost of ownership, things like support and training are included.

So in the end as slighted as it sounds, it may be true for now, but with demand, comes supply and I think open source is having enough demand to carry itself well into the mainstream.

[Zarkhalar]

Of course having trained professionals cost more. Linux is a lot more powerful and needs a lot better technicians to maintain it than the pathetic excuse of 'windows GUI administrators'

Edited October 19, 2004 by Zarkhalar