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Win2k Cheaper than Linux
An anonymous reader writes "According to this story, Win2k costs an average of 11%-22% total cost of enterprise. The study showed that the initial investment takes up less than 5% of the total cost. Linux did beat Win2k in one category, Web-serving." Man did this thing get submitted a lot.
A Windows 2000 license is around $150 area. Most Linux distros are free. Yes tech support to get Linux up and running costs money, it should still cost substantially less than Windows 2000.
TCO doesn't matter.
Linux costs me anywhere between 1 hour and 5 hours to download an iso of my favorite distro. Win2k costs me 5 minutes to burn a CD-R and 30 cents to buy the blank disc. Overall I would say that since with a minimum wage job I can make 6 dollars in an hour that win2k is by far the better value.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
Finally someone realises that the initial cost does not reflect the TCO. Wonder why Mac OS X was left out of the quotation.
;)
Oh, probably because macs won every other TCO report I've seen
"I tend to think of OS X as Linux with QA and Taste", James Gosling, creator of Java
of windows 2000.
Morphing Software
I can define TCO my own way, but it might prove that BeOS was king (yeah, right); and other's may define it their own way. We'd need to know exactly how they defined TCO to know.
if you only buy a single copy and then install it on your entire network!
From the comments under the article ('BSD user'):
Reference: Here we read that Mainstream support for windows 2000 servers will end 31 March 2005 That's only 2 years and 4 months from now. I don't remember seeing a 'use before' date on any linux servers. Do you?
Readers might wish to balance this article with the rest of the story, found here.
IDC: Windows 2000 Offers Better Total Cost Of Ownership Than Linux
Win 2000 offers cost advantage in four out of five server workloads
By Paula Rooney, CRN
Framingham, Mass.
4:55 PM EST Mon., Dec. 02, 2002
Microsoft's Windows 2000 offers a better total cost of ownership (TCO) than Linux for most traditional server workloads over a five-year time span, according to an IDC study.
Just a day before the Enterprise Linux Forum gets under way in Boston, Microsoft is celebrating the results of a study that maintains that the Windows 2000 Server operating system offers a better cost of ownership for running network infrastructure, print serving, file serving and security applications than Linux.
According to the survey of 104 companies in North America, the cost advantage of Windows over Linux for the four workloads ranges from 11 percent to 22 percent over a five-year period.
Linux demonstrated a cost advantage over Windows in only one category--Web serving. According to the survey, Linux offers a cost advantage of 6 percent over Windows for running Web applications over that same time frame.
While Microsoft's Licensing 6.0 acquisition costs are significantly higher than those of the free Linux OS, software acquisition represents a small percentage--roughly 5 percent--of the TCO, IDC found.
IDC says factors other than software acquisition cost--particularly staffing and downtime--are the most significant factors when determining TCO over a long-term period. For example, IDC says that IT staffing alone accounts for 62.2 percent of TCO, while downtime represented another 23.1 percent of the costs. Software acquisition, in contrast, accounts for a mere 4.6 percent of the TCO, while hardware represents 4.4 percent.
"The study shows very clearly that up-front costs, including hardware or software, are not the most significant items contributing to the five-year TCO value," said Al Gillen, an IDC analyst. "Think about it. How long does it take to surpass the cost of software when you have a high-paid staff member managing the system? That staff member cost is there regardless of what the original software and hardware cost," he said.
Expenditures for managing, maintaining, troubleshooting and restoring the systems operations of a Linux server were, "in almost every case, higher than for systems running Windows 2000," according to the study, titled "Windows 2000 Versus Linux in Enterprise Computing."
IDC attributed the Windows 2000 win to the maturity of Windows management features and third-party tools in the marketplace. This countered the immaturity of Linux system management tools and low penetration of Linux management platforms in the enterprise.
However, the report also noted that the increasing availability of respected management tools for the Linux platform--including BMC Patrol, CA Unicenter, HP OpenView, IBM Tivoli, NetIQ and Novell Zenworks--will likely improve the installation, deployment and maintenance numbers for Linux servers. "Over time, the gap in support costs between Linux and Windows will contract," the study stated.
Part of the cost of maintenance on the Linux platform is surely regular installation of upgrades which are freely available.
By contrast, who keeps a Microsoft product for five years without upgrading it? Especially in a corporate environment? That means that two years down the road, it's time to pay for a new version. . .
Just a thought.
Larsal
IBM thinks differently in this paper and so does CyberSource here.
As a technologist I'm very sceptical to economic calculations. I believe that they can be twisted in any direction.
There is a principle of uncertanty. Of the three items cost, time and product you can only know one. So if you want to know what product you'll end up with, you can't know the price or time...
Anyway, it is good to point out that Linux systems has problems in the management area. But still, people are working on it.
keep in mind, we had the full $2k/year MSDN subscription for each developer, paid each year, as well as some very experienced staff on hand... MS charged us $150/h to talk to us about a problem that we were pointing out in their CMutex MFC class (a bug they later admitted to) This was back in 1995 or so before MS jumped on the newsgroup bandwagon. At any rate, i wonder if these kinds of fees factored into the TCO?
Google: IDC microsoft
and you will see taht IDC has a history of tooting the MS horn.
Im not here now... Im out KILLING pepperoni
I love this comment on article on CRN's website:
"It just sounds strange that this article claims a five years study using Windows 2000. As of today, this study should have began by Dec. 1997 ! That means getting Windows 2000 two years in advance. "
So they must using a SWAG (Scientific Wild Ass Guess) to come up with it TCO figures.
I also wonder how rough Windows 2000 was in 1997! Could it be that these figures are made up!?
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
You get meta-karma, for actually using the word "balance" in the same sentence with a link to the register. I was impressed. If course, it's unbelievably funny, but I was pretty damn impressed at the effort.
On another front, you can get well-balanced news stories here.
Five years of Windows 2000? Let's see, if Windows 2000 came out in 1999, then it's been out for 2000, 2001, 2002...that's only three years. So there must be some extrapolation going on here, even if we allow that some of these shops were using a beta version of Win2k a year ahead of release. Then there is the question of hardware costs, since Linux potentially needs less hardware to perform the same jobs. And finally, it'd be nice to know how the 104 shops were picked.
Insert standard Mark Twain "statistics" comment here.
Curmudgeon Gamer: Not happy
Here is a good commentary from the register.
Hmm... How could they do a 5-year study on an OS that's only been out for 2 years?
It just makes clear in wich camp the researcher was this time. The first independent report hasn't been released yet. I think the real TCO is more dependant on admin than on OS.
/(bb|[^b]{2})/
NT for 5 years now. It's simple. Like owning a dutch wall, with a lot of generous boys to plug the holes. I upgraded to Windows 2000, which is NT 5.0. Whole domain, simple. And everytime some horrindous security hole appears I just visit the pretty blue and orange microsoft.com and there is a little dutch boy waiting to plug a hole in the dike. But don't think for a second I don't have my public on anything less than a Nat/Firewall box. Oh you clever kiddies you..
Linux admins are relatively "new". Let me elaborate.
You have a previously win32 shop where everyone know how to support win32. You either train or hire someone to support Linux. That is where you incurr the cost. From there, you have one person supporting 1-5 boxes (typically in test deployments) and so your divisor is low, with a high numerator.
What these studies don't do is assume that you have the same size install base of Linux as for Win32. Everyone knows that Linux is more reliable (and having worked in IT as a professional for 7 years, (and still working in it now) that is not heresay) so the same person can support more boxen.
Another problem is that the people who train rather than hire have the problem of unfamiliarity. Just like with any other job, it takes newbies longer to do anything.
Finally, the last reason is because it takes more to be a good Unix admin, and their salaries reflect that fact. But fortuneately, the stability of the boxes more than make up for that fact.
We will never have a proper TCO study unless conversion is 100% with proper support staff. The closest thing would be the migration of Hotmail to Win32. But we all know how that turned out...
"Microsoft is celebrating the results of a study..." Hehee. It was about time they found one study to prove how Windows 2000 costs less over a five year time span.
Never mind that Windows 2000 hasn't been around even close to that long.
Never mind that Microsoft stops supporting it in year 2005. Wonder how a six year time span would have looked like...
She could at least have linked to the study itself...
We see a similar effect where I work, an NT box costs us about 30% less to run than a Solaris box.
Why?
There are less mission-critical systems running on NT, so there are less DBAs, less backup, etc. The print server sits in the corner and gets a 3-finger salute if it plays up, so it's cheap to run. The mission-critical boxes, running web servers, databases, etc can't go down, so we have administrators to look after them.
IMNSHO - if we normalized for what each box is doing, Linux and Unix are cheaper to run.
Alan.
Nope - as a 'senior' support technician who manages a number of Linux boxes for a college, I am paid no more than the other technicians who admin Windows 2000 boxes, or those who manage no servers.
I would imagine I am pretty unique there though..
"Hey! Unless this is a nude love-in, get the hell off my property!!"
Without some details it's impossible to tell either what these results were based on or the specific areas where win2k was found superior to linux. I didn't see a reference to the actual study, so there is no way to gauge the validity of the results. There's just no meat to talk about with this marketing blurb dressed up as a news report.
Considering TCO can be defined many ways, most will agree that system uptime is a huge factor, as downtime has the direct cost of the people working on the server as well as the indirect cost of lost productivity from users who are unable to access the server resources.
The main knock against Windows here on Slashdot is that it is not nearly as reliable as Linux. I maintain that the two most significant reasons for this are that the typical Linux admin is much more experienced and that Linux is installed "bare-bones" and features only enabled by direct action. Windows, on the other hand, is designed to install with a ridiculous number of services and applications by default.
A properly configured Windows Server can be quite reliable. The main problem is reboots to apply service packs and hot fixes (although this is getting better). An experienced (not "certified") Windows admin knows how to configure Windows Server with only the necessary services and the proper security restrictions. You actually can get pretty good uptime if you know what you're doing.
The story mentions that downtime contributes more than 20% of the TCO of a system. With uptimes of months to years for *nix boxes; whereas you are strongly advised to reboot Windows boxes on a regular basis, where is the logic that 23% of the TCO of a *nix box comes from downtime?
We have linux servers at work that have downtime every 6 months for servicing, and then only for a handful of hours. Other than that, they don't come down at all. I fail to see how less than 1 day downtime/year (planned, at that) can contribute 23% of the TCO of the system.
2 sysadms at ~$70k/yr = $140k/yr. $0 for licensing. That would make downtime cost roughly $32k/day (23% of 140k, assuming 24 hrs downtime/yr). If you house something critical, like your CRM system, on 1 machine, and it goes down, I could see that. Then again, that would be your own damn fault for having 0 backup/redundancy.
There's a lot about that article that doesn't add up, and not just the 5 year study on Win 2000...
No, that's a bullshit comparison. The IDC study (yeah, I read it; you should, too, because it brings up some really good points) essentially says that the costs of administration for Linux are often higher than for Windows 2000 Server because Linux is, basically, a lot harder to use. It has nothing to do with the "weld the hood shut" open-source/closed-source argument (which is bullshit in and of itself, but that's another post).
The first comparison was, while still off the mark, more apt: driving an automatic is easier than driving a stick, and Windows 2000 is easier to set up, administer, and use than Linux.
I write in my journal
When it was only released in 1999... gotcha
What's under yellowstone?
note this does not even include the tax on your 6$ or the sales tax you pay on windows, so really youre probably looking at close to 30 hours of $$ to buy windows..
I think you have to remember how 'rough' linux was 5 years ago. Isn't it easier to set up (and maintain) a server running linux these days?
Five years ago Windows 2000 was a pretty tough road to hoe also.
It should be noted that Microsoft commissioned this study, which I'm sure did not skew the results.
* Wonders if this is another piece of MS propagander * Let the -1 Troll modding commence :)
"What do you mean you have no ice? Do you expect me to drink this coffee hot?" - Random Customer, Clerks
So was Win2K around in 1997? What am I missing? Hell 2.4.0 wasn't around that damn long either, so this is pure FUD.
This SIG pulled due to lack of funding. (This damn war is costing too much!)
Eat it Mac'o !
Windows 2k network for say 100 employees requires at least three IS/IT guys employed full time just to keep the damn thing running. Our Exchange server went down for several ours just because someone sent us a mail with Korean text encoding. Superb.
We use Linux and Solaris for the intranet and samba servers. Over a year uptime and never ever any problems. Same thing with external website (running Solaris), requires no maintanence what so ever. I wonder what's cheaper after a few years, *nix or windoze?
Ciryon
I am really sick of reading all this rubbish about the cost comparison between linux/unix and windows.For the sort of work that i do which is scientific based, the applications that we need are not available under windows. So it is impossible to run a cost difference between linux and windows, linux is basically priceless. And I am sure that there are some people that it works
the other way for as well.
In order to decide what operating system to use, one should first know what one wants to do with their computer and then decide what operating system to use. Cost should not be the deciding factor (although an important one) when choosing an operating system. If an operating system does not do what one needs it to do, then no matter how inexpensive it is, it is just wasted money.
As for training costs while using computers. It has got to the point now where the basic operation of all operating systems are very much the same. Using a browser in linux is almost identical to using it under windows. So it is impossible to say that training costs are substantially different for any operating system.
I expect a lot of side-taking on this one.
But I cannot see how they can support the argument except that at the moment, there are simply more Windows administrators and techs out there than there are Linux administrators and techs. What's more, I have encountered people who proudly make statements like "Microsoft Only" as if it were some status symbol or major accomplishment and who won't even go NEAR a machine running anything else as if it were diseased and might infect his mind. (Brings to mind certain flavors of Christianity)
But as there are more Microsoft-supporting professionals and so many of them are still out of work, it stands to reason that the TCO is low over 5 years... except one thing-- will Windows2000 still be supported in 5 years or will their license terms change again encouraging [requiring] upgrades to their latest OS? So yes, MS people are more available and will accept lower pay. Linux people are still more rare and generally expect more pay because we know a bit more... and usually know MS in addition to other OS's pretty well.
You still get what you pay for, for the most part. But the TCO figure is a very subjective thing... and has anyone asked if this was also yet another MS supported study?
If you let a person not used to UNIX/Linux administer the linux-server the cost is likely to go up, which seems to be the case here.
Why even bother comenting it? (can't belive I just did)
I could be wrong. I'm always wrong...
Now let me begin, most people here state that the statement offered above is wrong. From reading the article I see that that the total cost of ownership is in staffing smart people that understand Linux and can adminster it as well, if not better, than a windows admin can administer Windows. While Linux may not be point and click, and it offers a multitude of options, generally most IT professionals in the field have no freaking clue how to use it.
Not only that, but where do you send these people to get trained? There is no single Linux distro that is a "standard" and there is no single known place to get training. If you do find training, the costs of sending employees there is too much. Many people who know squat get certified in Windows Administration and then find some jobs at companies, with Linux there is a bit of a curve and less demand.
Lets also look at this in another way, say I wanted to change careers and get into the new latest fad of a business. Say I choose to get into day trading stocks (not different as people did a few years back) but didn't know where to begin. I am going to sign up with E-Trade or some online broker and begin trading. I am not going to open my own firm to day trade stocks. I am not saying Linux needs you to do everything, but for someone coming from a Windows enviornment, even the grep command is a bit much.
Well, it did take me about 6 months to learn how to parallel park smoothly. But - once I had learned, it was in fact much easier, because the clutch gives you an added dimension of control as you slip into a tight parking space. I got to the point where I could park the manual in a space 6" (15 cm) longer than the car. No one with an automatic trans could match that.
My experience with Windows products pretty much parallels (ha ha) this: easy to learn. Hard to administer.
sPh
What is the point of this article? The best solution is always to evaluate what is the best solution for each particular need. It is not proper to say that Linux or W2K or Mac OSX will be the best for anything everytime.
-> Sometimes, you just gotta break free from the shackles of proprietary code.
CRN already was a pro windows site before they even made the review or article. Proof you may ask for? Well, their web pages are in ASP and not to mention that the pages are servered on an IIS box. This proves they used M$ technology before hands and are not open minded to other solutions.
If you have a skilled employee in Linux and they are unskilled in M$, it would be alot cheaper to implement a linux box than a M$ box. The article is using the other side appproach, a M$ skilled employee that has no clue about Linux, will cost alot more to implement Linux.
NO! NO! Please don't mod me, I'm too young to die a troll. *click* Oh the pain, the pain...
I agree. It's entirely unfair to stretch the TCO out over five years without including the cost of *forced* upgrades. And what about cost savings by enabling managers to move to other (open source) tools instead of being 'locked in' to the Microsoft world ?
Another job well done the IDC advertising department... Slashdot has better editors.
"Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech."--Benjamin Franklin
It takes a sysadmin every bit as competent as a good Unix sysadmin to PROPERLY administer a Win2K server and its associated workstations. It's a fallacy that you can hire cheap newbies to run a Windows network. Instead of having the problems fixed, scripts written to have certain things get fixed automatically, you get reboot monkeys.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
I love when a TCO study comes out and people read and article (not reading the TCO itself) and claim victory, the fact is you have to treat one hundred servers differently than you do 5 servers. A TCO is not scale at a linear rate.
is that you don't get ANY points for installing it. You get 1 MS Licensing point for each copy of XP, 5 for MS Office and 10 for 2000 Server. No points at all for Linux. How can it be good for your business if you can't get any points! And levels. When you reach certain numbers of points you get new levels.
I think the new MS licensing agreement was actually a RPG system that fell into the wrong hands.
For a good headache...
Part of the lower cost comes from the factor of scale. If you're looking to do some consulting, well Microsoft has a massive and undeniable lead in the number of users- so you start up a business to take advantage of this and offer services for Microsoft software.
But everyone else is doing the same thing, so you have to lower prices and they lower theirs. (This is overall mind you, not pinned down to any two support services) Microsoft products are also quite easy to manage on the whole. Especially since Win2K came rolling in, plus with NT4SP6a you shouldn't have too many major server problems either.
Everywhere you go you can find all sorts of Microsoft camp product support. Once you learn one Microsoft product you are well on your way to knowing another.
Many corporate level packages also come on Microsoft (ERP, etc.) so that gets added into the mix as well - if you want a Linux solution you are really going to have to take the long way around for a lot of this stuff.
Linux is doing quite well, but entry into the Linux world is like running into a brick wall for many. There are far fewer Linux users around and the system is totally different from what most people are used to. There is a staggering amount of things to learn when taking on Linux, kernel recompiles, following the chains of dependancies, all of this takes time to learn and internalize. Most Microsoft type products are a matter of getting the latest service packs.
So there are fewer Linux users and fewer people overall familiar with Linux. The cost of finding someone to help you is going to be higher. Plus, I would argue there is *far* more to learn so you're going to pay the high priced people even more.
This presents a massive total cost barrier for those who would seek to save licensing money by switching to Linux. It is far easier to pay out to a software company for support and pay cheaper mainstream consultants and get things done than it is to start entering this whole new world of OSS. And you'll have to keep paying out more money to expensive consultants and employees to keep up-to-date, even though the initial costs are cheaper.
Then there's all of the little things that Linux can't quite do yet. Incompatibilities with the mainstream software products, pieces of software that just aren't available or which just aren't up to snuff when compared to the MS world. Add these in as indirect costs - even if you get the money to start up with Linux these little niggling issues will make management wonder why they bothered. Finance is not going to be happy without running Excel, the VP is going to be annoyed by not being able to access his IE only stock market site.
On the flip side, if you happen to have employees that known their Linux and know it well, there are definitely benefits to be had. If you want to add a new web server, W2K Adv Server is going to cost you more than the hardware and your Linux-savy employee can probably get an Apache server running nice and easy.
The problem is Linux is just not quite popular enough yet so these gifted people are hard to come by. Trying to insert Linux into a corporate world of Windows raised folk via consultants is going to mean huge dollars - basic stuff that everyone at least sort of knows how to do in Windows may require more consultant hours for instructional purposes.
But, even as the article mentions there are places were Linux is making itself cost effective and useful - like webserving. These tasks should be Linux's thin-end-of-the-wedge. Slowly get Linux in there for these tasks, and then maybe it can take over one more job, then another. Sys Admins can slowly learn more about it and become more experienced. Eventually that TCO is going to balance towards Linux.
There is a long ways to go though - and screaming that all MS users are idiots and they just don't realize how far superior Linux is, is counter-productive. The technical snobbery that often goes on (knee jerk MS bashing, even near-religious fervour found within variations on Linux, newbie bashing, etc.) helps nothing. The rest of the world will just ignore Linux even more and continue on doing their business using MS and closed-source products that they are comfortable with and *that work* as often as not. They *really and truly* don't care what software they use as long as it works, and as long as it is cost-effective to use it. Most business need to use computers, but what computers they use are irrelevant to them. They just need to, well, take care of business.
Find ways that Linux helps them to that in a cost-effective and friendly way and I'm sure more and more business will bite.
I have been in shos where there are 1.5 window admin FTE's to support 5 friggen servers a terminal an exchange, a domain controller, a file server, and an application server. In that same department we had 3.5 FTE's to support over 50 *NIX servers (and the *NIX servers were hit far more than the windows servers).
Totally worthless... they will say whatever the company paying for the study want to hear.
... one linux admin can handle WAY more linux servers than 1 windows admin.
I'd like to see this study with 10 windows vs. 10 linux servers, or 100 vs. 100
From the study:
measuring total cost of ownership of the two server operating systems over a five year period
Let me see a show of hands, how many of you are still running NT 3.51 in production? Do you think you'll be running 2000 in 2006?
How about this: how many of you are running a 2.0 series Linux kernel in production? Do you think you'll be running a 2.4 in 2008?
After five years without a system upgrade you can finally make back the initial investment in Windows, as long as you don't run web services, and assuming your admins start the race with Windows familiarity and without Unix familiarity. OK, I believe the study, but what does it have to do with the real world?
More perspective is available from The Register.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
I find it interesting the way arguments are going around here.
"Well sure any retard can run Windows so of course it is cheaper TCO"
And that is exactly how MS will market their products. Wanna web server? No problem, sure linux/freebsd is free, but the staff to support it will end up costing you more in the long run.
You folks act like being easy to use is a _bad_ thing. While the rest of the world thinks it's a good thing.
You call people who install a win2k server for their small business idiots and they're idiots for not mastering unix. But maybe they don't time to learn all that is needed, because they have a business to run, and it is simply cheaper(in the long run) to run a Win2k server than a linux one.
Think about it.
Sometimes it seems like slashdot folks sits in their geek tower and spews insults at all the morons for using MS. Without ever knowing what's really going on in the real world.
BTW, I use linux/freebsd and love them. But i also love computers in general.
Talking with some of my friends who run their own business they are really nervous about going to linux yet they are interested.
I can't give them support and they are afraid that supports costs will be too high, and Jim down the hall is pretty good with Windows so we will just let him do the administration.
Sorry for the rant I know everyone on slashdot is not this way.
...including a pack of whores publishing a "study" nearly identical to the spin excreted by your marketing department.
So what? How is this news?
Man did this thing get submitted a lot
We shall see this story again, but with a new title...
Taking bets now who will post the duplicate...
1) Hermos,
2) Michael
3) Taco
4) Taco's Wife (pertending to be Taco)
Tournament Management Online &
Also, remote administration on a windows box is still a major hassle, with many products *cough* webtrends *cough* demanding that they run on the console, even though they are scheduled jobs by nature. You are forced to use VNC to remotely administer these pieces of crap. Not that TS is much better. For GUI remote admin, X11 is still far beyond anything windows has to offer.
Win2k itself is pretty decent (except for the hardware requirements). The problem is the way developers still write their apps as if they are for a single-user system with no concept of security. And, as shown above, they assume you like to walk out to your datacenter and actually sit at a machine to administer it. Dumb.
That said, I still prefer linux solutions for most tasks. Hell, with the mod_ldap module we can even authenticate users on apache using active directory now. No more need for IIS!
Another test would be to recost the current google TOC assuming their 10,000 machines were running a MS OS.
I doubt that in either case MS OS would be cheaper to run over 5 years.
Direct from the CRN Atricle.
Just a day before the Enterprise Linux Forum gets under way in Boston, Microsoft is celebrating the results of a study that maintains that the Windows 2000 Server operating system offers a better cost of ownership for running network infrastructure, print serving, file serving and security applications than Linux.
There is no doubt, (I'll do my research tonight to prove it to myself) that MickeySoft payed for this 'survey'.
In related 'news' Sinclair Research is celebrating the results of a 'study' that the ZX-80 hardware/software platorm offers a better cost of ownership for maintainence than Windows 2K.
In other related 'news' Mars Candy Corperation is celebrating a 'study' that shows that thier Almond Joy product is healthier than mothers milk.
Er, yeah, they could. I know a guy who can park in a spot just big enough for his car, with hardly a hand's width between his bumpers on either side.
At any rate, the point is moot. Linux is harder, OUT OF THE BOX, than Windows to set up a total network solution. That's just the way it is. It takes more effort, and the people who do it will be paid more for their knowledge to get it done right, to setup a Linux network.
At my shop, we up to around 20 Linux servers. Keeping up with patches can be a pain. But since we started paying for (imagine that) an enterprise subscription to redhat network, the difficulty of this task has all but evaporated (except for kernel upgrades, which are a bit of a bear on our EMC SANs).
With RHN, I just pull up one web page with all of my servers, click click click, submit, and the servers all update themselves next time they check in.
Now if I only could have something that easy with my dozen Windows servers. We looked into Microsoft's SUS (software update service I think), but it "requires" an IIS server, which we don't have, so I need to get one of them up just to maintain hot fixes sanely? Sigh... Plus every hotfix on Windows requires a reboot. On Linux updates, I only need to reboot when a kernel is upgraded.
Anyway, as a manager of a shop that runs about 50/50 Windows and Linux, I think this is all bullshit, at least with my site's size. Linux gives us far less grief and requires less care and feeding.
But I do think management products can play a greater role in reducing TCO than a lot of you think when you get into hundreds of servers in a big data center. I'd be curious to hear from others who run "real" data centers...
btw, I thought Unicenter and others already supported Linux. No?
but the up front is trivial in the true cost of ownership, it takes a much smaller number of admins to maintain and grow an existing *nix network.
That comparison is totally off.
Parking is easier if you know how to handle a manual trans. Its only ppl who are not used to it who find it harder cos all the clutch-work involved. High speed driving (100+) is also easier, you have more control over the car.
Automatic is easier on high traffic and stop-go jams.
Windows is easier to admin in large qty than linux with tools designed for that like hyena and sms. The same things that make win more insecure are its remote admin/audit capabilities.
I read this article elsewhere last night. It was linked to from google news...
m l. asp
Microsoft commissioned the survey!
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/28408.ht
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,741730,00
My question is, why doesn't this particular article mention that important fact?
--------
It's OK to be social, just don't tell anyone about it.
Sure the price is cheaper, maybe. But what about in less developed countries were talent is far cheaper and software is far more expensive relatively.
I have been travelling around South America for the last 2 months and I've probably been to about 20 or 30 cybercafes. Nobody is using windows XP. Hahahaha. People were fine using Windows as long as it was free but now, with the piracy protection and all they are just going to stick to win2k and win98. This is kind of like the computers getting too fast issue. Everyone has a computer now and they are fast enough. Windows doesn't crash anymore and people don't need anymore features.
I talked to a guy who asked me about Linux who I met on the beach. He was the head of a large Chilean corporation who said that the software cops were coming to check out his licenses. I told him RedHat 8, Evolution, Star Office. Get the Point Of Sale and Call Center Running on Linux first. Oh yeah, and get a LINUX GURU.
In my experience it's easier to backup and restore Linux based systems. Fair enough with Windows you can backup the registry hives but that's a lot trickier than just copying a few text files. When Windows NT/2k/XP won't boot (BSOD on bootup) you're often up a creek without a paddle. At least with Linux you can get the system up with a bootable CD or boot floppy.
Also, as others have pointed out, Win2k has only been out for three years now, so how could a five year study be anything but conjecture? You could say that they projected the number out a couple of extra years, but then how is it a "five year study"?
It's certainly possible that a windows box would be cheaper to maintain as a print server. Pretty much you just plug it in and forget it. I'm just not convinced this "study" has proven it.
WWJD? JWRTFA!
And what added dimesion of control is that? Transverse? A car can only go forward of backward, and turn the wheels side to side. I'd hate to own either the car in front or behind you if you believe otherwise.
Maybe if you're moving fast enough you'd be able to fit into a spot smaller than the car, so fast cars are a definite plus when it comes to parking.
Huh? Forget everything you know about Linux, or UNIX in general. Start with a clean slate. Now tell me how to set up a Linux machine to get its IP address via DHCP. Do the same thing with Windows 2000 Server. Which one was easier?
You may like Linux better, but that doesn't mean it's easier to use.
I write in my journal
IDC says factors other than software acquisition cost--particularly staffing and downtime
Let me see if I understand this. Linux has MORE downtime cost than 2000? I don't think so. Ever try to install software on Windows? Ever manage to do it without having to reboot? Especially an MS app? I don't remember the last time I had to reboot my Linux machine, but it was most likely due to power issues or hardware failure than anything else. This goes for every Linux server I've ever managed.
As for NT and 2000 servers, every time I install or upgrade a package, I get down-time. Not to mention, 2000 servers generally take longer to reboot than Linux servers.
Sorry, I don't buy the downtime side of that article at all, which makes me skeptical about the rest.
I was dissatisfied with administrating her Win98 box so I set up her machine as a diskless host (the Win98 data on the HD is still there but the boot floppy prevents Win98 from booting). She seems to be understanding it okay (GNOME) and she's in her 60's - plus I can rlogin to her box and see what's going on/wrong should the need arise.
It might be worthwhile noting that real studies, which we can look at, unlike this one, and which aren't backed by MS, show that Linux has a lower TCO:
http://www.cyber.com.au/cyber/about/linux_vs_wi
http://www-1.ibm.com/linux/RFG-LinuxTCO-vFINAL-
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
... but it is crap!
considering those IT employees: fire them! or get them to study some basic UNIX administering which probably will suffice.
I work at a company with about 150 people. We have about 5 large UNIX servers and some Linux servers who are all under pretty heavy load: No problem at all, they're only being rebooted for hardware maintenance.
Since some time the mail and some other administration tools run on Windows servers, which are all 'overpowered' for their jobs. These are the machine which give the most problems... Installing (security) patches, deinstalling them again because they break critical applications, restoring them after a crash...
Now take a guess which machines take most of the time to administer and therefore have the largest TCO.
Every independant study will show that the TCO of Windows (whatever version) is higher than that of most UNIX derivates.
Apparently, the "study" is an exercise in pulling numbers out of thin air then.
How long ago was it that the MS/Hotmail internal paper was leaked showing that administration of the large server farm was a nightmare with Windows 2000 and that with Open Source software (FreeBSD in this case, ISTR), it was vastly simpler and consequently required far fewer administration resources?
If OSS takes a fraction of the admin resources, and is robust and reliable, offering potentially lower downtime, *and* by their own volition these account for the vast majority of the cost (also disputed in the MS/Hotmail paper), then unless they're paying the OSS admins six-figure salaries and the Windows admins are on minimum wage, then it simply doesn't add up.
So who funded this "study" ?
In all the discussion about Microsoft TCO, you missed The Register story of the day...
Woman jump starts car with cyber-infant.
Even if this were the case, they neglect the ratio of admins to boxes. In my company's case, the ratio of admins to servers is much higher with Windows NT/2k than it is with Solaris/BSD/Linux. Even if the *NIX admins are more expensive, one of them is generally cheaper than 2 NT/2k admins.
Fully licensed blockchain psychiatrist
...So Cheap that it couldn't handle a little slashdot traffic. Probably using ISS on win2k the jerks.
Literally though, what could cost more on linux than win2k. With so much more OSS software for Linux, it's obviously less expencive for software, and hardware, and you don't need as many people to run a linux-based network as windows based.
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
We can see the great benefits of a MS solution firsthand by the performance of your server.
The site www.crn.com is running Microsoft-IIS/5.0 on unknown.
What is the TCO of replacing that smoldering hunk in the corner, guys?
well the original article was about tco of running linux as a server, and not really aimed at developers.
one thing to not about Free software is that the support base from the community is huge. as a result when you are having problems there are many more resources available for you online than there are for proprietary software. also people developing Free software are more likely to admit bugs and problems with their system than those who close their source to the public.
my own personal expirences have shown that developers in the linux community are more likely to respond to you personally than those from say microsoft. take for example a problem i was having with a network card. i was getting strange errors in syslog and i wasnt sure what they ment. i poked around on the net and i couldnt figure out what was wrong. in a last ditch effort i emailed donald becker. perhaps you've heard of him, he writes most of the linux network interface drivers and he came up with a little clustering concept called beowulf.
well i emailed him with the problem i was having, and do you know what he did? he didn't ask me for money, or a credit card number, or a beer. he emailed me source code for a diagnostic program. i emailed the results back. this continued for a couple hours and eventually we determined that the nic was bad. oh did i mention that he responded to my initial query within an hour?
now i ask you, if i emailed support@microsoft.com and asked them for help with my nic do you think the guy who wrote the network card drivers for windows would respond to me personally within an hour to work out my problem for free? this is the difference between support costs in windows and linux. you might not appreciate them, but i do.
-- john
One of the common citations that are bandied about is that Linux admins make more than their Windows counterparts. But, the evidence seems to contradict this "wisdom". Most of the Linux admin jobs that I see posted offer lower salaries than comprable Windows admin positions. Surveys, such as this, also indicate that Linux admins are actually paid less than their MCSE counterparts. This naturally begs the question, are Linux admins truely more expensive than the Windows admins?
Another issue is the "difficulty" of administrering Linux, as compared to Windows. While, there are some valid arguements to support this hypothesis, there are also some important details that are seemingly ignored. That is, the difficulty is in fact due to unfamiliarity. Windows admins are unfamiliar with Linux and it is therefore more difficult for them to administer it. But, were these Windows admins born knowing how to administer Windows? Is Windows truely so simple that they can do it without any prior knowledge?
No! The fact is that the Windows admins have had specific training in administering Windows. They have gone to classes, MCSE Boot Camps, seminars all about how to manage Windows. They also have a bookshelf FULL of Windows administration books that they have studied. Now, after all that, Windows is familiar and relatively easy for them to administer. I challenge anyone who makes the difficulty claim to build a bookshelf of equal size to their Windows one. If these people read just as many books on Linux as they have on Windows Administration, they would not find it any more difficult than Windows. This would likely be true even without any Linux classes or Linux Boot Camps.
It has been proven by a legion of CNEs who find Novell no more difficult, in many cases far easier to manage than Windows. Yet The same Windows admins will say that Netware is MUCH harder to manage than Windows.
Also, on the subject of training etc. These TCO reports always factor in the expense of Linux training. However, they do not seem to factor in the cost of Windows training. Let's not forget that the books and the classes and the MCSE boot camps cost a lot of money. Even if that money has already been spent, it must be factored into the TCO. These MCSEs were not born knowing how to administer Windows 2000. It costed thousands of dollars each to raise this generation of MCSEs. In most cases these training courses were paid for by the companies. How can they be simply ignored by the TCO studies? Are these MCSEs going to live forever, or are they going to be replaced by a new generation that will have to aslo be trained at a cost of thousands per head?
Easier than going through several dialog boxes of a "wizard"
/renew
> ipconfig
That wasn't so hard, was it?
You're backwards. It takes one highly literate propeller head to support Linux, and an army of mole-people to support Windows.
Fully licensed blockchain psychiatrist
It's interesting to check out netcraft's statistics about web servers with insane uptimes.
They only list the fifty highest uptimes, the 'winner' (FreeBSD/Apache) have been up for 1410 days. That's right folks, three years and 315 days.
I'm aware that OS uptime != service uptime, and that most admin work on a *nix doesn't require a reboot, but still it indicates that they have had no major problems due to the OS.
Too me it seems like this is a great advantage when running a production server (is that the term in English?), and that it at least indicates a lower long term maintenance cost. Admittedly, those servers are only web servers, but I would think that you would observe a similar trend for servers running other kinds of services.
I'm not an admin (not yet, currently studing CS). Still, am I way off here? I see no Microsoft software on that list... Just a thought.
I'm eager to learn, corrections/observations are most welcome!
Are you a grammar Nazi? I'm trying to improve my English; please correct my errors!
Hey maybe they're right!
To install Linux I need the following:
- buy a new computer
- order a Cable net connection to download the CD
- buy a CD burner to burn the CD
With Windows I just need to:
- dial 1-800-555-DELL (free)
- give credit card details
- receive delivery of new PC with Windows installed
So really buying Windows saves me money as I don't need the net connection or the burner!
Ok ok, so that was bad. But it's only 8:21 and I'm half asleep.
No, actually, she could not have. IDC research studies are not free, nor available online. You can, however, BUY them, for many thousands of dollars. For example, you can buy this 13 page study about the "future" of photo printing for $4500!
I hold it, that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing. -- Thomas Jefferson
Acording to Netcraft, the site runs Microsoft-IIS (v5). I guess those guys did not read their own study
2) ???
3) Profit!!
Sorry, somebody had to say it... :)
Guess who probably got a free IIS/5.0 license out of the deal? December 3, 2002. Cute.
o de_w=on&site=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.crn.com&submit=Exami ne
http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph/?mode_u=off&m
That actually sounds like a fairly standard "how to lie with statistics" approach. It's true, but not TRUE, if you know what I mean....
As for the title, think about it. When you own a car, or better yet lease a car since it simplifies these numbers, you have regular costs such as payments, registration, insurance, fuel and maintenance. You also have an irregular expense if you're involved in an accident.
The latter might be rare - I think it's something like 5 years between accidents on average across all drivers - but the cost of an accident can easily dwarf all other costs. So these isolated events skew the numbers when you mix the regular and irregular expenses.
(The same thing is behind the statistic that for the average person the vast bulk of your health insurance money is spent during the last week of their life. Of course it is - most years you aren't fighting for your life!)
This is why "downtime" expenses are so high for Unix systems - they're so rare and often caused by hardware failure. Windows, while getting more reliable, still has more downtime so you have more 'bumper benders' as opposed to the catastrophic mechanical failures.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
It should be pointed out that this study was commissioned by MicroSoft, so you have to consider that it may have been biased. My version of the article submission pointed this out :) Yes, this thing DID get submitted a lot, I'm sure.
83% of all statistics are made up on the spot.
This sig no verb.
Which neighborhood would you rather live in? One where the neighbors freely helped each other out? Or one where all appearance of friendliness depended on the passing of money?
The point is, your neighborhood's valuations are affected by the neighbors, and their neighbors. Linux admins have as neighbors a vast network of people who will help them, most often for free. Plus they also tend to be on friendlier terms with both hard- and software. So if it costs more to have them in the next cubicle, what you're paying for is a real increase in the value of the real estate your own desk is on.
Of course, some people find it romantic to live in rough, ugly places full of prostitutes and confidence men, viruses and scams, where respect's only measure is money in the pocket. But they don't usually expect to pay more for it, relative to real estate costs elsewhere in town. After all, there are broken windows.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
Volume (read: corporate) editions of Windows XP and Windows .NET server do not require activation.
Good post, but I have a correction and some comments:
;-)
One should note that the cost of upgrading Linux software is $0 for Debian, and negligible for RedHat (as you only have to buy one license).
This is untrue. Red Hat's distribution is every bit as free as Debian's - you don't "have" to buy any licenses with Red Hat. Plus, Red Hat have released official ISOs of their distro since the beginning (where are those official Debian [or SuSE, while I'm at it] ISOs again?). That said, Debian definitely earns major credit for being able to do whole distribution upgrades essentially on the fly.
It might be worthwhile noting that real studies, which we can look at, unlike this one, and which aren't backed by MS, show that Linux has a lower TCO
While these studies probably ARE of greater merit, one must admit that they are just as likely to be biased - the Cyber.com.au study is done by a big Aussie *Linux* consulting firm. As for the IBM one? That's done by an ASTRONOMICALLY LARGE Linux consulting firm... IBM.
The Free desktop that Just Works
Maybe you should get a second opinion.
See what The Register has to say about this study here, . And don't forget to check out the link, near the bottom to this IBM study (PDF) , a study researched by the Robert Francis Group.
Interesting second opinion, more in line of my experience.
Gee, I wouldn't know, my installer did it automatically...
If not, I just select K menu --> Configuration --> Mandrake Control Center and then click on the pretty widgets in the Network section. Or, alternately, type "draknet" on the command line (its faster).
People who criticize Linux for its difficulty obviously havent looked at one of the main distros in a while. Linux is now as easy (if not easier, considering there's less reboots) as Windows to set up and use. Different, perhaps, but as easy.
I wouldn't be surprised if this story was another MS fabrication...
Reminder: find a new sig
Generally these comparisons of number of admins for one type of server based on the OS are nonsensical. The real comparison needs to be focus on what function the server is performing.
Database servers require far less daily change control than File/Print servers. Even less when you consider it's the DBA doing changes, not the server admin.
What if you have one NT admin for every 40 NT servers, but only have one Unix admin for every 4 Unix servers? Isn't that a nonsensical comparison, when the NT boxes are 1U Compaq rack-mounts, but the Unix boxes are HP Superdomes?
And besides, when people talk about administrative functions they are thinking enterprise level. Not your dorm room.
I saw it in IDG.net. It's pretty funny...
Well for nearly 11 years I have been in the fileserver world. I touched lots of file servers. From old ancient LANtastic and Netware 2.15, going through most Novell flavours up to 5.0. For 11 years I worked with, administered, tweaked and crunched so many different file servers that I don't remember all of them. Lots of Novell flavours, OS/2, NFS on Solaris and Linux. I worked also with Windows "solutions", from WfW up to Windows2000 Server. From all these I sincerly prefer Netware. Netware is far better and manageable than any other file server system. Naturally as Novell did it specially for file servers. However there is a problem with Novell. Its prices are prohibitive for many customers. But, if your work highly depends in file server services, surely the TCO is far lower than everyone else.
Among all the systems I used, the most crappy, cumbersome, crash-proned, time consuming and nervestraining was M$ crap. It came up into hanging a whole local network, just because M$ thought it could play at will with TCP/IP stack. But there are tons of stories about the crap. Let's just pick the most recent.
In April this year, I met a medium-sized Compaq server in one highly important organisation. Compaq's dealer sweeted a lot to have that lovely machine there. And sweeted even more to have it working. The thing worked, naturally, on Windows2000 Server. I was asked to tweak the crap so that several problems were gone. And the problems were: workstations loosing connection with the server, Apps frequently hanging up, file transfer working slowly (in a 100mbits network it looked much like 10mbits), and a episodic events with the machine crashing.
After some administration we came up to the conclusion that the machine was going into sure doom. The DNS was crashing every day, WINS and SMB were giving wrong packets into the network, the file system was getting wrong data, user accounts were not freed, CPU never lowered behind 30% and lots of many other problems. Besides we found that, everyday, 30 minutes of workday was lost on backing up data (it was a damn important server) as no one could work while backup was going on.
Well, we created a backup server, curiously on Linux, but with the objective to reinstall Windows2000 on the main server. We lost ONE week trying to do it. As we discovered, the original installer had also huge problems with that machine. The machine was simply unable to work stable with Windows2000.
Considering the pros and cons I decided to use my old weapon The Penguin Dancing Samba, against the huge oposition of many people. However the situation was Hell in Flames and there should be a fast solution. So the bosses agreed the change.
Well I had a whole day of headaches to install it on Compaq's RAID. Also I had lots of trouble creating a secure, stable and automatised environment. In the whole, it took me 2-3 weeks to do all the work.
Today, nearly half-year later, the admin approaches the server 1-2 times in the week. Most work is log checking and some rare tweaks in the configuration (mostly adding users), the machine carries several early warning scripts in case something goes wrong. Backup is completely automatic. With the exception of one single user (some mystic problem), everyone works without hangups, crashes or lost connections. The system lives perfectly in its 100mbps network and the problem of slow connections is forgotten. Besides, the average load of this machine is just 3% and it now carries also a MySQL server that is frequently used and which, in the future, may substitute many file server tasks.
Is this the the higher TCO they talk about?
Where I work, we have about 100 sites in a metro area. We have Linux servers at each site handling printing and file services, for hundreds of users per site. We have built a rapid-install feature to put new boxes out, with very little time being necesary to configure the machines to match the existing setup. We have configured https-driven web front ends for things like user addition/deletion (for the samba accounts), printer addition/deletion/queue-clearing, and the like. We have ONE guy whose job is to maintain the backend of these servers. There are a total of four network engineers here, maintaining these, the Novell servers, the network backbone, and all of the other loose ends that come about.
Show me this working on NT/2000.
IBM had PL/1, with syntax worse than JOSS,
And everywhere the language went, it was a total loss...
Unless I miss my guess, alt least 20% of the data that pass thru servers in the world ARE using his code.
I think the best writeup of the article comes from the register, to summarize, Windows is cheaper because it compared all the expected costs, Linux/Unix administration costs more becuase the admins have a more hands on role in setting the system up, while Windows admins need the skill of a trained monkey to get everything up and running. However, when something goes wrong, as it will, the Linux/Unix admins will be better able to correct it, both by design and because of the hands on role they had in setting up the system, while the bargain basement windows admin will pilot his cursor around the screen hoping things fix themselves. A smarter Windows admin will be better able to fix the problems, but your cost savings goes away.
Also, the write up pointed out that if you add in an upgrade, the Linux system would come out ahead, since upgrades are free, and the cost differences are small.
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
Isnt Windows 2000 NT5. Last time I checked it was. Even says so it self. So NT has been around for a LONG TIME.
I ain't splitting hairs but stating the obivous.
Puto
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
No, it's a projected TCO over 5 years. Read the article.
john
if you liked the story "Win2k Cheaper than Linux" as posted on slashdot.org, then you'll just love these companion stories!:
"Animal Protein Healthier than Vegetable Protein" as posted on vegetarians.net
"Peaceful Dialog Goes Farther than Violent Conflict" as posted on alqaeda.gov
"Censorship Attempts Actually Lead to Greater Mass Appeal of Target Sites" as posted on scientology.org
"My Uncle was an Monkey" as posted on creationism.com
don't delay! visit now!
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Does this include lost productivity due to Outlook worms/virii/ILOVEYOU/etc? I know we lost a lot of productivity here (3 days worth) because of Klez.
I use Linux by choice (home), and Windows by force (work, which lost a lot of productivity thanks to Klez)!
I want my rights back. I was actually using them when our government stole them after 9/11.
When I've seen similar articles in which Linux is claimed to have a lower TCO, the article always provided a detailed explanation of where they get their numbers from. This article is all fluff. No numbers at all. It's just the words of some survey company. If someone can find a link that has hard numbers, it'd be much easier to have a reasoned discussion about the results.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
First of all I am NEVER going to use DHCP to assign a server an IP, Windows or Linux. Secondly, most of the new distros (as well as Windows) are able to configure a NIC to use DHCP (or it'll ask you what IP to use) during the install, providing that it's one that they have drivers for. In fact of the two, the Linux networking config seems the more reliable. I always do the networking config on a Windows server AFTER the install is completed as the installer usually manages to screw it up somehow and I wind up reconfiguring it anyway.
You're using her as bait, Master!
When you purchase and install a Win2K product, you give Microsoft the right to "audit" you. They performed one of these audits on a company I worked for. I am certain we owned all of the software that was on our machines. We had a corporate policy of no piracy, buy what we need.
We just couldn't produce EULAs for 13 out of over 600 products. Their lawyers also wanted $6000 for the MSDN copies we had. These guys don't seem to even understand Microsoft licensing and appear to be trying to squeeze you for every cent. I had to fax the MSDN user agreement stating that MSDN CDs could be freely distributed within the company. It did not seem to matter to the law firm that we could produce the CD covers for the other products. No EULA, no credit. It cost the company $13,000 to settle. The lawyers got 2/3rds of that for their "work". The remaining third went for purchasing software which I feel we already owned.
I felt scammed and violated. This ticked me off so I looked for alternatives. I discovered FreeBSD. I installed SAMBA and had the same fuctionality as a Windows Server without the risk. I had to buy 2 Samba books to figure it out. I had to reinstall FreeBSD multiple times until I figured out how to do it. I can do it now in my sleep. It is not that FreeBSD is harder, it was just unfamiliar.
If you think this is an isolated incident, it is not. Audits happen everyday. Sometimes, the target really deserves the attention, sometimes it is just Microsoft biting a hand that feeds them. Sometimes, Microsoft's lawyers go over board and put the squeeze on a non profit or school and then people squak at Microsoft. Then there are a number of small companies that, unwittingly, find themselves in a bind.
There are alternatives to some of the Microsoft software. I suggest to everyone that will listen to use the alternatives first.
Windows *is* cheaper because the type of person you employ. If a company uses *nix then they want a higher level of service and employ better qualified and experienced staff. Some companies do not care about level of service and have anybody to look after the computers that can insert a CD and follow prompts. The *nix guys with their better understanding will predict problems and cure them before they happen, whilst the MS guys will have problems, blame them on the system and fix them in time. No one notices the *nix guys as the system just works. Everyone gets to know the MS guys and if they are nice guys they get a cup of tea and a chat and people are still happy.
When they did this study I doubt if they took into account the cost of the lost time by users who just work through with *nix and do not have the same amount of down time etc. If you value your data the extra cost of the staff will pay for itself many fold.
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
While it's true that Win2K does much better in terms of uptime than Win NT, it still doesn't even come close to Linux.
The Raven
You are missing the point of TCO.. when u factor in the cost of the software and the upgrades to that software in most instances they are penuts compares to the salaris of the administrators that maintain these machines.
The reason that this article can be viewed as valid is becuase any idiot can go to windowsupdate.com and patch their server box. In my area of the world a MCSE might make 40 grand a year, a Red Hat certified Linux admin might make well over 6 figures a year.
Hencforth that makes the TCO of windows less than that of linux. While it is generally true that a linux admin can handle more boxes simutaneiously than a windows admin... most companies that i deal with only have a max of 5 or 6 servers. Which one admin can easily handle no matter what the OS.
So there are some instances where linux may have a larger TCO than windows. That is not to say by any stretch of the imagination that I would ever install a windows server in MY office. I have 6 servers sitting in my server room and not a one of them is running anything other than SlackWare. But thats not to say that it may be cheaper in some cases to run windows, but nowhere near as reliable.
Considering that noone takes the time to update most Win2k boxes with the latest patches it makes perfect sense.
A properly administered linux box will take more time and money than a crappy and insecure Win2k box.
I'm not going to try to defend the notion that a Linux desktop has a lower TCO than a Win 2K desktop, because frankly I doubt that it does. Linux requires admins which, unlike MCSEs, aren't churned out by the dozens by your local community college.
The problem I see here is that most of these Linux vs. Windows TCO studies hinge on the idea that you are replacing a Windows 2000 desktops with a full-fledged Linux desktops, and that's the wrong way to do it.
I'd like to see a unbalanced TCO review of what the City of Largo, Florida has done. Basically, they've got 800 very cheap thin clients (230 concurrent) running X-Windows applications (KDE, etc.) off of a couple big-ass terminal servers. Very similar to the Linux Terminal Server Project, and very cool.
There are so many businesses paying $200 for Win 2K Pro and $350 for MS Office just so their employees can send email and dabble in Word or Excel. It's insane. They could be saving $550 per machine in software costs alone! Not considering the fact that the thin client hardware costs much, much less than the average desktop. And there's essentially zero administration costs on the clients. Let's see a TCO comparison on that.
I'm starting to get off-topic, but I'm excited about the project so what the hell. I'm currently doing a little in-house pilot of the same thing at my employer. I've customized the KNOPPIX bootable ISOs to basically be X-Windows thin clients. You just pop the CD in a machine, reboot, and you get a KDM login box for our terminal server. Very, very cool. Even free server licenses from Microsoft couldn't persuade me to drop this project.
It takes a hell of a lot more to be a 'GOOD' Windows admin than a good Unix admin, have you ever seen a 'GOOD' Windows admin?
(nb not the one with a 'to re-install is good, to format is better' T-Shirt).
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
The windows system is simple, logical, and makes sense with the physical layout of drives, (all are at the same level and are all separate). Linux on the other hand is a much more powerful and useful method, Allowing you to add room where you need under the same directory tree.
When I started with linux, (which was not very long ago, about a year and a half), the idea of having your hard drives mounted all over the place or in some directory called "/mnt" baffled me. Now that I understand it, (roughly), I appriciate the system and the technical options it allows me in usage of my hard drives. It's a matter of understanding something that on the surface is more complicated, but more powerful.
I do security
Oh that's crap. If windows craps out on booting up there's still a few simple things left to do that usually will solve the problem. The repair consol tool is decent, you can repair installations off the cd, and of course the venerable emergency repair disk. But in a large netowrk enviroment (since you're smart and redirect the folders to the network shares so nothing will be lost in just such a feather numbering eventuallity) you just pop in a floopy have it automatically throw down what ever image it should have, automagically, and let it do everything itself. The person using the computer returns phone calls for a little while, and everything is just as they left it.
And backing up the registry in windows consists of clicking on windows backup then clicking on the box that says system state.
The truth is pretty mundane. Linux and Windows each have their advantages. When you promote one at the expence of the truth, you're no longer a believer you're a zealot.
--Jimmy has fancy plans; and pants to match.
...that I will not charge you ANY MORE for configuring/supporting a Linux server than I would a Windows server. It sounds to me like the problem isn't the choice of platform, but rather the lack of shopping around for technical support.
You're using her as bait, Master!
Heh, good to see other slackers like me, around. I also run Slackware on my servers. I am stuck with 7.1, and no rush to upgrade.
(What I do miss in Slackware (or Linux in general) is something like OpenBoot from the Sun SPARC boxen, and something like Solstice or Veritas VM.
Sigged!
why don't you compare the volume of support that microsoft handles with the volume handled by the open source community, and then compare turnaround time on problem reports, and finally compare cost.
frankly, i would expect the community to pick up the slack. the open nature of linux allows people not working directly with the organization writing the code to discover bugs and provide patches. as a result you get a more robust product.
local lugs do alot to help users. the one here in pittsburgh holds installfests every two months, and has an email list which answers many of the user's questions. if they users are having problems, they are encouraged to bring their computers to the installfests and user meetings to get help trouble shooting their problems.
if linux had %95 of the market, then there would be that many more people with expirence running around who could answer questons. with this market share there would be more activity on lists and the hard problems would eventually make it up to the people who hack at the code.
the example i listed above was one of the few examples of a problem i was having that i could not solve after a bit of searching on the net.
an hour on the phone with microsoft trying to debug my problem would have cost me $50 to $150 and my problem still wouldnt have been fixed. they would have gladly taken my money and told me that it was a problem with the venders driver.
i used to work for a computer store and this was the treatment i recieved from microsoft when i had similar problems. they would never say that i was encountering a bug in windows.
-- john
I just checked my Win2K Pro CD, and the files are dated 9 Dec 1999. So Win2K is 3 years old, not two. (Don't have Server handy, so can't check that.)
The first W2K release candidates came out almost a year before that (can't find those CDs offhand or I'd give you a date, but IIRC it was around Feb.99). So one could justify up to almost 4 years since W2K became available in a testable form.
Even so, I agree that whatever merits the study has are severely undermined by the obvious use of long-term projections rather than hard cold facts.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
I used to run a win2k network. I installed it too. Other than viral infections the workstations worked great. Win2k server and active directory sucked ass however.
The two most common things in the Universe are hydrogen and stupidity. -- Harlan Ellison
That wasn't so hard, was it?
First, how are you supposed to know that unless you already know it? Second, that only works once; how do you configure the machine to get its IP via DHCP every time it boots?
I write in my journal
If you've ever read the CRN weekly, you'd know that they're forever pushing Linux as the answer to everything. They're almost like /. -- gleefully promoting the latest MS difficulties whilst simultaneously giving reams of coverage to Linux inroads.
Heck, if you'd read them a year ago, you'd have come away convinced that Linux would be on the desktop in a majority of Fortune 500 companies by now.
let's see it was in the evening, so it might have been on his own time. i worked on it in the evening because i also had a job. he worked for nasa and then started his own company. perhaps it was tax dollars helping me...
-- john
I find it amazing that all these instant pundits and press-release-repeaters haven't noticed that the IDC study was funded by Microsoft; this could call the results into question.
At least at eWeek, someone noticed this:
"Study Finds Windows Cheaper Than Linux (continued)
"Many drivers of cost need to be uncovered in such an examination and evaluation, and the 'risk/return' trade-offs of Linux versus Windows may not be as obvious as they appear at first glance," they said.
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The fact that Microsoft paid for the research is likely to be used as a weapon against the findings by some in the Linux community and will also elevate the debate about how valid calculations of total cost of ownership are for any given comparison.
A Microsoft spokesman confirmed to eWEEK that the firm had completely sponsored the White Paper but said that IDC had controlled the methodology, data and findings. IDC analyst Al Gillen agreed, telling eWEEK that the firm undertook a lot of custom research for individual companies and customers."
And Galli also goes into detail about the methodology, so you can have fun picking that apart.
somebody's ass on the line if a system is down
Ok, so I am troll feeding... but as for this, when was the last time anyone has ever heard of Microsoft (or any other software company for that matter) being sanctioned when one of their products died and caused a customer massive support grief? Such recourse has never and will never happened. At least with Open Source software, you're not being forced to pay for the privilege of not having someone's ass on the line when your system is down
In case of fire, do not use elevator. Use water!
Whether your transmission is auto or manual has little relevance to ease of parking for _normal_ driving[1]. Power steering and turning circle does.
With the auto, just use the foot brake for speed control at low speeds. If you're impatient, left foot for brake, right foot for accelerator, but you better be used to that or you'd dent something and you could wear out your transmission if you aren't careful.
Link.
[1]For stunt driving/parking a manual and a good handbrake are required. Stunt drivers can _slide_ _sideways_ into parking spots. If the parking spot isn't too tight and they're driving a front wheel drive they can still get out by turning the front wheels, spinning them whilst locking the rear wheels with the handbrake. Now this requires a manual - since controlling tyre spin on an auto is kinda difficult. So you may be right, but that's not what I'd expect for normal cases.
Using a repair disk isn't quite the same as being able to boot the system proper using a floppy or bootable CD. In my experience the recovery console is pretty toothless, you can't install much from it. It's handly if the MBR screws up and if you need to disable a service, but other than that it's a joke. Suppose (for example) you swap your motherboard and the chipsets are different (eg. Intel to VIA). With Windows 2000/XP if you forget to change the IDE driver to the standard IDE controller driver before switching the board you'll find it blue screens when you boot. With Linux it would just boot and if it didn't you would be able to make a boot disk of some kind with another Linux PC.
That would be the people who find it easy to administer, obviously.
Windows admins are cheaper than Unix admins.
-ted
Still running NT3.51 and 4.0 over here and I have yet to see the gun pointed at me forcing me to upgrade. I still get support from my vendor, and the machines are (surprisingly) running so well that we rarely touch them.
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
again, this is depending on the OS to be recoverable. migrating things in windows between servers is a PITA. then there's registry corruption (oh yes we can back everything up on a floppy, or whatever... until you migrate whatever you want to another server and something 18 levels down doesn't match up and you get a big fat bsod. the fact that windows automagically does everything for you, and won't LET you do anything yourself without a long painstaking process is hella annoying. guess what i need to do to back up and/or migrate my webserver? copy the httpd.conf file and the directory structure and files of the old server to my newly installed box, and wa-la - it works. Automagically! simplicity truly is the better option.
The news here is that microsoft paid for a study that concluded that linux is a better web server. Do we care about the other part?
These results are based on a *survey* of businesses, and it reflects what they *think* the 5-year TCO is going to be, so all you guys who are fixated on flaws of the study or that Win2K wasn't available 5-years ago are missing the point. The point is that this is what the business world believes, not what reality is. You can complain all you want about MS, but I think of it as a good wake-up call: it tells us what the rest of the world is thinking about Linux and points out where we ought to be focusing our efforts.
I just select K menu --> Configuration --> Mandrake Control Center and then click on the pretty widgets in the Network section. Or, alternately, type "draknet" on the command line (its faster).
Interesting. Not only did that not work on my Linux box, but the instructions didn't even make any sense. What is "K menu?" What is "Mandrake Control Center?" And typing "draknet" resulted in "Command not found."
Is it relevant that I'm running Red Hat 7.2 and that my window manager is FVWM95?
(See my point? Even if you know how to do something under one specific instance of Linux, that doesn't help you at all when faced with another instance of Linux. The two aren't even similar.)
I write in my journal
carries quite a good story on this and brings up several valid points;
the survey was paid for by Microsoft,
the five year ownership DIDN'T include the cost of upgrading the hardware,
that Microsoft recommend / require upgrade cycles
that downtime wasn't taken into account.
Hmmm.
First of all I am NEVER going to use DHCP to assign a server an IP, Windows or Linux.
I don't recall asking. If you want to manage 200+ computers with static IP addresses, that's no skin off my ass. It would be difficult to argue, however, that such a policy is smart in any meaningful sense of the word.
Secondly, most of the new distros (as well as Windows) are able to configure a NIC to use DHCP (or it'll ask you what IP to use) during the install, providing that it's one that they have drivers for.
That wasn't my question either. Assume, for sake of argument, that the install was done with no network configuration at all. The question is simple: how do you configure a running Linux system to use DHCP to acquire its IP address at boot time, and how does that process compare to configuring a running Windows system to use DHCP?
I write in my journal
I hate to start a new thread on this, but I will. I will not compare ease of use between Linux and Windows in a desktop environment, (although those goddamn GPL violators Lindows are changing that) but I actually believe the Linux is much easier as server than windows. For instance setting up IIS requires mulling through several layers of menus, while apache only requires editing a short text which has simple instructions contained within. User priviledges are more complicated in windows, and don't do as good a job with program access rights as Linux, ie. more processes are going to have Admin/root access in windows than Linux. Hence Linux/Unix generally has by design inherently better security than windows. Backing up a Linux server is much simpler than windows as all than text config files can simply be backed up (along with whatever data your serving) rather than the whole system. Windows does allow the creation of a special recovery disk(ASR), but this complicated and often doesn't work. I digress, as I am running out of time. In a server environment editing text files can be much easier and faster than configuraring layers and layers of GUI configs.
Could Jesus microwave a burrito so hot that he himself could not eat it.
Stick shift kicks ass. But back on topic...
I've found Linux far, far cheaper than Windows. Sure, I have to invest more time in it, and time is money, but---I've learned one fuckuvalot more about how computers and networks work using Linux than I ever did using Windows, and the college classes I would need to take to learn about things in detail if I were using Windows are hella expensive.
--TheOrangeSquid Is it any wonder things seem so awry? We swim in a sea of confusion and don't have to think to survive
There's a lot more to driving a car than that. How about driving down a long hill? Do you keep pressing the brakes? On a manual you just gear down, and let the engine brake for you.
Have you ever been driving on icy roads with an automatic, and suddenly began to slide? That's when a clutch is nice to have.
It a number of situations, it's quite useful to be able to control the power from the engine to the wheels. I'd take a manual over an automatic anytime. The only problem is that the car I'm using at the time isn't mine, and has automatic.. )-8
Well, switch to Mandrake, then! Seriously, I'm pretty sure there's a similar way to do it in RedHat...and as for using FVWM95, that certainly wasn't the default Window Manager. So of course, if you don't follow defaults, then you're going to find that Linux is more complicated than Windows...
So, let me rephrase what I said: Mandrake Linux is as easy (if not easier) to use and administer than Windows. The point is, there is a learning curve when installing a new OS. Things are different, but that doesn't mean that it's "more difficult".
Reminder: find a new sig
Anyway, regardless, this report seems to be 100% pure FUD. From the top of the article:
Just a day before the Enterprise Linux Forum gets under way in Boston, Microsoft is celebrating the results of a study that maintains that the Windows 2000 Server operating system offers a better cost of ownership for running network infrastructure, print serving, file serving and security applications than Linux.
Wonderful timing, eh? No wonder it is breaking news! This report seems to be timed as an attempt to take some steam away from the attention Linux would be getting.
As for the study itself... Windows 2000 is less than 3 years old, yet this is a five year study.
Everyone else has brought this up.
What is this? You have to pay a Linux guy more than an MSCE? Not to bash all MSCEs, but there are a good number that don't know what the heck they
are doing. At the last job I had, it took 3 MSCEs 2 days to get my password changed on a single NT server. I'm not making this up, seriously. It is no wonder a Linux guy is better paid, if they know their stuff. As many other people have said, I doubt they are including the costs of calling MS tech support for $150 an hour,
which a lot of MSCEs probably do.
Also, did they include the costs associated with security holes? Remember that nasty Code Red outbreak last year? I highly doubt they took that into account. Heck, I still at least a few attempted Code Red attacks on Apache server logs.
How about costs when your exchange server goes down due to "Outlook Viruses?" Doubt it.
For everyone I know in a small business setting, the cost of Open Source has always been cheaper. In a small business there are usually one or two guys who can maintain every Linux and BSD box, and
are able to do two or three times as much as the equivalent number of MSCEs, without spending a dime on tech support.
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
And you will see the biggest unrealistic caveat: the study assumed no upgrades over a span of 5 years! M$ tries to force an upgrade just about every frickin' year or so. It is unrealistic to think a company will have the same windoze running 5 years down the line with M$ breathing down their neck AND M$ dropping support for their 5 year old OS after a mere 3 or so.
Another interesting and true point is that those people you hire to administer a linux system setup are more knowledgeable, period, than the MSCE admins for doze so that when something really goes south (on windoze almost anything beyond people forgetting their passwords) the windoze admins are useless while the *nix geniuses can easily whip out a fix - probably without terminating network connectivity while they do it.
An M$-funded study is the same thing as a "study" produced by the M$ marketing department and has the same legitimacy.
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
I agree!
There's a certain factor of "the American Tunnel Vision Syndrome" around. Only two countries in the world still use the imperial system; USA and Libya (if I'm not mistaking). Thus, in any international communication, Americans should adhere to what have to be defined as a world standard.
A bitt off-topic, perhaps..
three cdroasting, file serving machines, 3 years, almost zero downtime (excepting upgrades). Running 24/7. No nasty EULAs to reviews. Priceless.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
If your environment is setup in a unix/linux friendly way, TCO of unix/linux will be low. If you take an environment setup for windows, and try to plug linux or unix into it, the TCO will be higher.
Interesting to note that downtime was the second highest cost in TCO. Are they saying that windows has better uptime than Linux? (Which is absurd, even if you don't factor in the downtime cost due to viruses). Look at http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/today/isp.avg.html The first windows machine comes in at 14th place.
This study is just dumb. It's a projection, nothing more. Probably funded by m$.
I don't see the disk thrashing you speak of with Mandrake 9. However, I am running with 512MB of RAM, which is the maximum for the i815 chipset. Mandrake update is smooth as butter. Just got finished with it no more than 5 minutes ago...downloaded and installed the security updates for Galeon and Windowmaker. Was running KDE at the time.
Tasty, tasty mandrakes! Eat 'em with catsup!
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
Over on the Microsoft Training site they have a bunch of lemmings shouting about how Microsoft training is just the cat's pajamas and can give you "challenging opportunities, quicker promotions, and a leadership role".
This training AIN'T cheap.
Now, on the other hand, this article post here on slashdot is uhm....basically saying that you have to hire a sysadmin to run your machine and that's the expensive part. They lead us to believe you'd have to pay the linux guy more.
However if you compare These Numbers with These Numbers you'll see that the microsoft trained guys get paid more than the industry average.
So - I'm missing something here. Either Win2k doesn't need a sysadmin (yeah right...my ass) and Linux needs a small geek army, or the Microsoft Training (sounds like something Scientological - "Standard Tech" kinda stuff)is a bunch of bunk.
Microsoft is either lying about Win2k's total cost, or they're lying about the career prospects/validity/usefulness of their MCP training.....and all the industry surveys show that MCSEs make more money than linux geeks (cert-ed or not). That's damn well the case where I work.
So which one is it, Billy? Lying out the left side or the right side of your face....
Mandrake Linux is as easy (if not easier) to use and administer than Windows.
IDC-- an organization whose opinion I trust more than yours-- disagrees with you. How can you explain this?
I write in my journal
If you read the article a bit more closly and check the comments for referance, you'll notive the article says that this study was done over a 5 year period of time. Windows 2000 wasn't out 5 years ago making this rather impossible and thus pretty hard to believe. And I can imagine that starting with Linux 5 years ago and using that till now probably would cost more than it would to start now and carry forward 5 uears because so much progress has been made. Were upgrades allowed? This article is very light on the details. Would a service pack be allowed then? Wouldn't this make Linux better because for free, you get better and better upgrades. Win 2000 only gives you a few services paks, unless you upgrade to XP (ha!)
So in the end I am really confused at how this is even possible and sort of able to believe part of it because of the severe age-ness of it. But really. Come on, we need way more detail before I'll actually believe it.
Needless to say this article is completely silly to "us" slashdot types as it does not deal with issues we're familiar with. We aren't constantly trying to figure out how to use applications, we just do. We aren't constantly boggled by the inner workings of a computer, we just know. The one thing that is tough to grasp is that 98% of the people who comment on slashdot know more than 98% of the people who use computers. And that's why running an IT department is so expensive, "WE" screw them out of as much money as possible.
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
And XP is NT5.1.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
HOW can anyone claim that an OS that needs to have security patches applied almost every week and needs to be rebooted when they are applied is cheaper to run? It is literally impossible to have a windows server with more than a couple of weeks uptime (unless you don't patch the thing, and then it's an insecure/unstable mess). In addition, security patches are release when MS want's them to be.. not when the hole is found (as is the case with Linux). Only a MICROSOFT SPONSORED "study" would be so biased.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= - The Celtic - =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
That while the price of product A may be cheaper than product B, they both come with their own set of costs.
Lets use an extreme example to illustrate this point.
When you build a bridge, you hire the best talent and use the highest quality resources money can buy. Because no matter how much these things cost up front, they're nothing compared to what it will cost if your bridge collapses.
You make similar tradeoffs every day when choosing between two products.
You may be able to save by economizing on employees or software, but if it results in a huge security compromise where all of your systems are trashed, confidential data is leaked to the world, and it takes you a month to recover from the damage, you'll probably wish you hadn't been so frugal.
Or maybe not. You have to decide which is more important, and if you're not qualified to make the decision, ask someone who is.
Actually Win2k is automatically set up for DHCP... usually if it already has the driver all you need to do is plug the network cord in...
Okay, this study is a *joke*.
(a) This is commissioned by *Microsoft*. No *shit* it shows Windows systems as cheaper TCO most of the time. Watch *Red Hat* commission a study, and you'll get some equally "selected" statistics, just the other way. It's all in which numbers you pick.
(b) Did you read the criteria for the tests? They interviewd a bunch of random people, asked what they did with their server, which OS they ran, asked them how much it cost, and did some averaging. This approach is utterly and completely bogus for this kind of study. People usually do *not* use Windows on higher end servers. Yeah, those things with some serious-ass load that *matter*. So, not surprisingly, the less critical servers tend to be Windows-based...and sonovabitch, the company spends *less* on those! Who woulda thunk!
I expect ESR or someone will run out and do a nitpicky analysis that tears it apart, but these items stand out to me, in a quick skim of the thing.
May we never see th
dicking around for a day or so, calling support back and forth, only cost the support fee if your time is worthless.
:wq
"You might need to do daily admin on a Windows print server, clearing out bad jobs and such, but a cron takes care of this on Linux."
No, you need to do daily admin on a print server because people are constantly moving, adding and eliminating printers in the environment.
Same with file services. New shares need to be created, permissions need to be updated, groups need to be maintained.
"Do a little educational reading:"
It baffles me when people who have obviously never been server admins think they are in a position to tell me how to run my servers.
Well, of course I'm right, and they're wrong! What other explanation is there?
Seriously, I'm not totally convinced of IDC's methodology. Of course, if people are used to using Windows, an unfamiliar environment will seem more "complex." Now, if they were to take complete computer Newbies and sit them down of both Windows and Linux (a newbie-friendly Distro, such as Mandrake, Lycoris, or even OEone) and give them a few simple tasks to accomplish, then we could have a true indication of the OSes complexities. My guess is that they'd come up pretty much equal.
I also believe, but I could be mistaken, that the IDC study didn't take into account the last versions of Mandrake and Red Hat, nor did it look at "windows-friendly" distros such as Lycoris, Lindows or Xandros.
Now, perhaps you should consider trusting your own opinions. What I said is from personal experience: I find Mandrake 9.0 as easy to use and setup as Windows. If I understand you well, you're saying that you need someone else to tell you what to think? No wonder you find Linux complicated...
Reminder: find a new sig
I admin Novell 5.1, Debian 3.0 and WinNT servers and a host of Win Versions from 95 through to XP on the desktop. Novell is by far the most thought out and easiest to administer (NDS and NDPS) and Linux the most stable and flexible. The NT server is stable but only because it runs exactly one application as a service (Navision) and still has to be rebooted once a month to clear memory leaks. The desktop is a nightmare and I wish we had the money and a PHB who would let us move to Mac OSX there.
I used to admin a Win2k advanced server and AD was a pain and Win2k would often lose network sync.
No way. I don't have the time for those problems.
That's right. Why waste time and money getting people that understand about stuff like DHCP when any idiot can stick in a Windows CD and get a server running. You also get a lot more backward compatability with Windows that you do not have sith Linux.
:) BTW what's a backup?
My boss wanted a decent server but I told "nah, don't waste your money..." I set up Windows 95 for him and shared the C drive. We had a file server and print server in 2 hours and no admin costs. He was pleased as punch for the first week
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
Licence costs are usually only 5-10% of the TCO of a desktop. I've read several reports that have come to that conclusion. So the fact that linux is free, is not really a big selling point.
The fact that it is open-source by itself doesn't sell it either. It doesn't really matter to them as 99% of normal businesses have no interest in looking at it, fixing it or even maintaining it should the product wither away and die.
Linux should focus on having solid, open, extendable standards. Personally I think that is the best selling point it could have. No lock-in, no proprietary formats.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
"I got to the point where I could park the manual in a space 6" (15 cm) longer than the car. No one with an automatic trans could match that."
Matched and beaten you. With an automatic, in the heart of Lakeview in Chicago. Skill and practice. Never tried it with an stick shift -- six months is a long time to practice parking.
The six inch trick can backfire, as the cars front and back of you will tear hell out of your bumpers when they try to get out. After all, "parking by Braille" is the only way suburban transplants know how to parallel park in Chicago.
Seriously, I'm not totally convinced of IDC's methodology.
It sounds like you might not be aware of it. IDC's report is based on surveys of-- I think it was-- 22 companies. They recorded data about things like how much each company spent on (for instance) IT staffing salaries. They found that companies that use Linux tend to spend more on IT staff than companies that use Windows. Since IT staffing salaries make up something like 62% of the total cost of ownership of a given computer system, the result is that Linux is no less expensive, and sometimes more expensive, than Windows.
This isn't a subjective test. IDC didn't look at an old version of Linux and say, "Damn, that sucks. We'd better report that it's hard to use."
I write in my journal
If you read the article at the register you'll see the first sentence reads "by strange coincidence [this was] sponsored by Microsoft."
Specifically, I would like to know who maintains an Exchange server be 5.5 or 2k, that agrees with this article?
I have administered Exchange boxes in one form or another for about 4 years. (i also admin other stuff:-) And just last night... Stop POP3, Error1053, Service is stuck in "stopping", Start options in "Services" and "Exchange System Mgr" are greyed out. So I try to use the Stop option in the SysMgr (only option avail), Error "POP3 is not running"... ARGH! After a few hour joyride on support.microsoft.com and reading Enterprise "solutions" such as "reboot", and delete the instance and recreate. And last Exchange Support call I did cost me $297 bucks (that was two years ago).
Look I could care less Linux, Windows, WinManix, whatever. If it works, I will use it.
By the way that $297 dollar solution... Extract the ExhPubDb as a *.PST thru outlook, and copy it back to the public info store. This had to be done ONCE a week.
These solutions absorb too many man hours, that could be spent on proactive and productive projects. I'm not here saying that Linux is better, but I can't possibly think that the TCO for Exchange in the Enterprise is an acceptable cost.
And for the record I personally think Win2kPro is still the best client!
peaCe
Awesome!
Supposedly this study is based on the TCO over a span of 5 years, but Win2K hasn't been out 5 years. 5 years ago, Linux was much more difficult to install and admin than most distributions now, and the user/support base was much smaller.
And from the perspective of hiring support, I don't see what makes people think a Linux admin is more expensive than an MCSE monkey. In fact, I just got free support from RedHat about an issue we were having with Apache (Problem with Date::Manip). Super helpful, figured it out instantly, we fixed it, done. Three days prior we had a 3 hour call to M$ tech support (@$250/hr) for them to tell us to reboot, re install all the service packs, and finally just blaming us and telling us we'd have to reinstall the entire system. After a bit more fussing with it, I got everything back and working without reinstalling. (A tech tried uninstalling Windows Media Player, and it wreaked havoc)
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. It's just that yours is stupid.
The problem with this kind of study (and I'm also including the ones by IBM that favor Linux over Windows in this) is that there is no general case that you can model results for. All these studies assume too many specific things about the "typical workplace" and "typical server needs" and "typical staff" that are not universal, and then have the hubris to take their conclusion and make the bold public statement that it applies universally. TCO calculations are especially prone to this since TCO depends largely on the staff's ability and willingness to learn the technology, and that's not the same for every situation. For us at work, Windows would be more expensive than Linux simply because we don't like it, and thus would spend the minimum time necessary to learn how to make it work just barely for us.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
What do you mean by "finally"? People have realized this for a long time. The argument for Linux has rarely been that it's cheaper because you get the software for free--Linux is cheaper because it's more reliable and easier to maintain for people experienced with it.
Oh, probably because macs won every other TCO report I've seen ;)
In some environments, Macs have lower TCO, in other environments, they don't. For example, for home users, I really do recommed Macs. But trying to integrate Macs into our UNIX environment has been a major headache: Macs lack many of the management and software update features that Linux and even Windows have, and there are many non-standard and quirky things going on under the covers.
But that will eventually change: your hardware will not last forever, and eventually you'll be forced to upgrade if only because hardware that is a drop-in replacement for what you have will be very difficult (thus expensive) to find.
And at the point you are forced to change hardware, you may well be forced to upgrade, because there's no guarantee you'll be able to get NT3.51 drivers for things like the new RAID controller (or networking card, or ... you get the idea).
That means upgrading your OS to something that does support your (new) hardware.
Use 'slashdot stuff' in the subject line in any email you send me if you want to get past the spam filter.
Whether there are or are not more trained Windows monkeys out there really doesn't matter for an individual company. What matters is the cost at which you can hire expertise. A Linux admin is probably no more expensive than a Windows admin, and he is likely going to be more efficient and effective.
Everywhere you go you can find all sorts of Microsoft camp product support. Once you learn one Microsoft product you are well on your way to knowing another.
That's just plain nonsense. Except for non-standard lingo and the existence of lots of dialog boxes, Windows system software is no more consistent than Linux system software.
They *really and truly* don't care what software they use as long as it works, and as long as it is cost-effective to use it. Most business need to use computers, but what computers they use are irrelevant to them. They just need to, well, take care of business.
Linux does "just work", and it works very well and cost-effectively. It would work less well if it became more like Windows. What Windows gives you is the illusion of usability and easy administration. Windows gives you a shallow initial learning curve and then gobbles up time and money with inefficient and cumbersome management procedures.
Pretty much all professional tools in any field are hard to use at first, and there are good reasons for that. If people want to waste their money on expensive, hard-to-maintain Windows systems, that's their problem. Linux users can't do more than spread the word that it's worth investing the time to get over the inital hurdles.
They found that companies that use Linux tend to spend more on IT staff than companies that use Windows.
Well, right away you can tell that the study is flawed: it could only be that companies that use Linux are more IT-oriented that those who don't, i.e. have higher IT needs. The only thing that this study seems to prove is that companies that use Linux have bigger IT staffs - to deduce that therefore Linux has a TCO is to take a leap of faith, as nothing proves that if those same companies switched to Windows they would actually have smaller IT staffs...perhaps they would need even bigger IT staffs!
The only valid study would be to check companies who switched from Windows to Linux (and vice versa) and compare the size of their IT staff (assuming that their IT needs haven't changed substantially). Another good yardstick would be to compare the ratio of IT staff employees to the number of servers and workstation managed, as I've heard from a few knowledgable sysadmins that it takes less IT people to manage a Linux network than a Windows network of similar size...What I know for sure is that the only server at our job that has yet to crash this year is the Linux mail server - while all the other Windows server have failed at one time or another.
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Well, right away you can tell that the study is flawed
Using my one-sentence half-assed summary of the study's methodology to come up with flaws is just a waste of your time. If you want to critique the study's methodology, read it. Don't point at something that I said and wave your arms like you've peeked behind the curtain or something.
I write in my journal
I use Win98 and Slackware on the job, and I already know them inside and out. I am interested in *learning* about stuff on my own so I won't walk in cold to a unix shop. Because I've set up a home network and set up my own servers, I've learned tons about networking, both in the unix sense and in a generic sense. Using Windows, stuff usually "Just Works" like magic, and when it doesn't you have to bring in somebody who understands what is really going on, and they're getting harder and harder to come by.
It is my goal to become one of those people, and why spend money when I can invest my spare time with Linux?
Maybe Linux isn't ready for the corporate world, but the corporate world can go fuck themselves^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^His not an interest of mine at the moment.
Companies train engineers to use their equipment and software. Why is this not also true for IT? Companies expect IT people to come in and know everything.
Computer administration is a skill. If you learn a couple types of systems very well, you can pick up new systems without too much work.
--TheOrangeSquid Is it any wonder things seem so awry? We swim in a sea of confusion and don't have to think to survive
The point is that Microsoft is not forcing an upgrade every five years like the parent post incorrectly asserted. Obviously, as with any technology, you eventually have to upgrade.
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
wow, thankos. But I could not find which distros are, in fact, supported. I only saw that they have the VxVM install guide for Linux, but that's all.
Sigged!
you mean c:/windows/user.dat and C:/windows/system.dat aren't as easy to backup as a textfile? you can even set windows to keep the last 12 sets of registies (or more) to ensure you have enough backups...
(okay that's win98, but ntuser.dat is in a lot more places...)
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
This is exactly why I feel that Linux is simply not ready to be used as the core NOS on a large network. It's all about managing NETWORKS, not servers. Server-centric operating systems are good for specialized tasks like web serving or applications, but for larger companies with multiple physical locations it just doesn't cut it.
Our company runs Netware as our core NOS. We have Linux servers set up as mrtg servers to monitor and trend network traffic (among other things) and soon will be used in Intranet and Firewall boxen. But if we were to replace Netware and go all Linux/*BSD our IT operating costs would go through the roof. This is because there is no way to easily administer network resources under Linux like you can with Netware (via NDS) or even Windows 2000 (via MADS)
This is exactly what i'm talking about. Network-centric Operating Systems are the present and if Linux want to gain acceptance in the enterprise they will need to abandon the "flat" server-centric model. A powerful, scalable, open-source Directory Service (and I don't mean LDAP) would be a great start ...
-- Jim
just be careful, that exploding motherboard/psu trick is only fun if it doesn't come out of your paycheck. rebooting puts a high strain on the capacitors, and if pressed rapidly enough they can burst into flames yay!
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
what a crock of shi*.
A cogent argument, supported by this report commissioned by IBM. Note how poorly Solaris rates - something many should be able to sympathise with.
Don't believe the nonsense, unless you hear it from me directly.
Yep. It's called 'dump' (that's the original name for dump, but the original was for BSD's FFS (I believe)). The way that dump was written, it requires some knowledge of the filesystem internals, so -- in this case -- Linux dump is only likely to work well with ext{2,3} filesystems (i.e. not, for example, reiserfs).
OS Software is like love: The best way to make it grow is to give it away.
Microsoft actually sponsored this study:. htm. Of course, we all know Microsoft to be a bastion of integrity...
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2126953,00
"You done taken a wrong turn."
-Bill McKinney, in Deliverance
Microsoft paid good money for that study. If you take it seriously, that just proves your last remaining brain cell has died. The more you dig for details the more ridiculous their claims are. If you want the truth, read the article on the register, and check out the IBM study a this link... http://www-1.ibm.com/linux/RFG-LinuxTCO-vFINAL-Jul 2002.pdf
You're totally right. I will read it, and then I'll discredit it! ;-) Seriously, I will read it - I'm just surprised that the IDC would disagree on MS on that point (in their recent leaked memo, MS admitted that the TCO was was their Achilles' heel, and the area where they would have to put the most "communication" efforts.
Peace.
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For folk who have an interest in the sciences, pooh-poohing a scientific study, with probable extrapolation, without looking at it objectivly is probably about as un-scientific as it gets. You want empirical evidence? Here's some:
I have been trying to break from MS for ages. I can't condone a switch yet. Why? Admin costs. It isn't because myself and the other 2K admins can't understand or transfer our expertise to an archaic CLI based OS. It's not even because we can't work out how to do familiar things in *nix because we're all thick (much as you lot would have us believe).
It's actually the cost of having more staff to administer each machine. If I were to switch 100% to Linux I would have to administer each machine individually at the moment. In Windows I can simply change the group policy for whatever AD object I wish to change for, say, a virus database update or a permission domain wide for installation of a certain program. In *nix I would either have to log in to each machine myself or write a script for a machine to do it for me. Each way faffing about is a process involved. Simply put, *nix hasn't got the group and domain managment facilities that Windows has. Until it has, there's simply no competition. And yes, I love the OSS idea too, but i'm also a realist. Sorry.
Resistance is futile. Reactance buggers it up.
If it lurches far enough to actually save you then you had better go buy both a new flywheel and starter, since you can bet that your current ones are hosed.
Lasers Controlled Games!
We must oppose this to the problem of things not working in the closed world. When you change out there and things don't work, all the time in the world is useless. You get to reboot until someone else fixes your problem or does not. Amazing that the cost of the other 2k, which has yet to be changed out, were compared to costs of a desktop that has yet to be tried out in the last five years. Ha ha.
OK, after five years Red Hat recomends an upgrade. Not bad, considering it could have been changed out at no cost and without interuption for better performance four years ago.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
In my experience it's easier to backup and restore Linux based systems. Fair enough with Windows you can backup the registry hives but that's a lot trickier than just copying a few text files. When Windows NT/2k/XP won't boot (BSOD on bootup) you're often up a creek without a paddle. At least with Linux you can get the system up with a bootable CD or boot floppy.
/cmdcons", Next-Next-Couple more Next's-Finish). Or, if you missed that step, boot off the Win2K server CD choose Repair, Recovery Console. Login, and disable the offending drivers. You can even replace corrupted DLLs, etc. I've been able to bring hosed systems back from the dead pretty quick. I've even managed to switch a system from the multi-processor kernel to the single processor kernal manually, if you haven't tried yet, its a pain in the neck. (The why behind this story is longer than I want to post.)
Actually, this is just a case of knowing what you are doing with a Win2K system, and a bit of planning in advance.
The pre-planning comes in by installing the recovery console on the Win2K server (Start-Run, "f:\I386\winnt32.exe
Though since I am a big fan of regular backups, and system imaging (ala Power Quest Drive Image) I will often skip the whole re-build/fixing process and just dump an image of the system on it from a time when it was clean. Restore backups, install patches, did, done, fininshed. But, the option for recovery is there, you just have to know what you are doing with the system. (Where have I heard that before?)
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Laziness is the father.
I'm not one of those who feels that software companies are evil for selling software and insisting that customers actually pay. I think they have the right to do so if they create the software.
Even so, from a user's perspective, there are risks to running software with "we'll sue you unless you follow our rules" licenses, such as all commercial software and, to a lesser extent, GPL'ed software.
I'd like to minimize (GPL) or eliminate (genuinely free "university style" licenses) the licensing risks and encumbrances, so I can do whatever I want with the software as I go along, especially as conditions change.
There are other risks to using sometimes amateurish "free" software, but those are diminishing over time in the major categories, while the licensing risks do not seem to be diminishing.
I already find OSS products to be the best overall solution in certain categories, and I anticipate that the number of such categories will continue to grow as the risks of OSS gradually fall below those of commercial products and the usefulness catches up.
"Those who have never entered upon scientific pursuits know not a tithe of the poetry by which they are surrounded."
It all seems to make sense. Linux support is more expensive than Microsoft support so your total cost of ownership will be higher. This report makes sense if you use the same support model for your Linux systems as you would for your Microsoft systems. The impication is that you need to directly replace your Windows support staff with Linux staff. This is simply not the case Linux is designed to be administered and built over the internet. Quiet large companies need no onsite Linux expert. A simple phone call and most poblems can be fixed remotly. This significantly changes the model. As for the "easy to use management tools" built in to the Windows 2000 Operating system. They are inflexible and often require you to "reboot" the system after changes are made. This does not sound like a problem untill you add up four or five server resets and work out how much downtime this adds up to. If you are using Linux the "server reboot" happens infrequently and then only if really big changes are made to the system. IDC mention file serving and print serving as a place where TCO is higher. On a standard Linux distribution I would probably agree. Setting up windows file sharng can be tedious and time consuming. But why would you choose a standrd distribution for this task. The Mitel SME 5 and Clarkconnect [to name but two] specilaise in this area. The setup of Windows file shares and virtual disk drives is absurdly easy. It needs no special IT training. [No not even a Windows expert] Printers are supported and appear on your network as though through a Windows server. For the sake of argument lets chuck a couple of Mac OS9 $ OSX systems for your graphics people and a legacy Solaris server running Oracle in to the mix. On the two distributions I mantioned both of these will connect and see the same file shares as the Windows workstaions No you won't need a MAC or Solaris expert. Never mind a Windows expert! So where is the argument now? You have no on site Linux staff . You have someone on-site who can deal with day to day administrative tasks [ no IT knowledge required ]and a Windows person who comes in to fix up the Windows Workstaions when they break. Upgrades are done incrementally for a couple of years and then you have to pay the Linux experts to come and spend the afternoon upgrading the system. How is you TCO looking?
If it's the same one I read, it did consider the cost of licenses for Windows 2000, and then said that since it was a Microsoft company, it didn't have to pay for licenses.
If you get in right with them, you have to pay for very little from Microsoft. For student use, my department can install any microsoft development product or operating systems on an unlimited number of lab machines for $2000/year. That used to be close to the per machine cost of software...
You've gotta be kidding. There is a reason people are using linux in the server room. Did you happen to notice IBM SUPPORTS LINUX ON EVERY SERVER THEY SELL? Yeah, that's right, the world doesn't revolve around Sun. Last time I checked I wouldn't touch their stock with a ten foot pole. Check that out 15 year old. By the way, contrary to what you've been told, small to medium sized businesses make up the core of the world's economy and they aren't buying million dollar servers. MS didn't get rich catering to "the enterprise". They made their money on SMALL BUSINESS SERVER LICENSES. While I'm at it, where the fuck did you find a copy of WinXP server? THERE IS NO SUCH PRODUCT! If you are referring to .Net server, it isn't even out yet! You almost had something there talking about "use what your user base requires". Then you turned right around and assumed that everyone in the world requires Windows. I guess you haven't been paying attention to the growing trend of government agencies around the world turning to linux as a cheap yet more secure alternative to Windows. I guess you also didn't notice that linux happens to be fairly popular among the masses in countries whose people can't always afford a forced upgrade. And as far as TCO, the only reason you don't give a shit about rolling out 400,000 copies of WindowsXP on systems is because you have a volume license key that doesn't make you register your hardware on every machine you "Ghost". Yeah, people without that key have to REGISTER every last machine they install. By the way, what job market do you work in? I'll be damned if I can find a Linux Admin. job that pays 100K$...
Russian Russian Russian RussianDollSig DollSig DollSig DollSig
>The truth is pretty mundane. Linux and Windows each
>have their advantages. When you promote one at the
>expence of the truth, you're no longer a believer
>you're a zealot.
I like your attitude. I'm sure it's very easy to administer a Windows server. If you know what you're doing.
It is also easy to administer a Linux server. If you know what you're doing.
And, as you said, "When you promote one at the expence of the truth, you're no longer a believer you're a zealot."
Bottom line: Know what the heck you're doing.
P.S. People who know what they are doing usually can expect more pay than those who don't.
Codifex Maximus ~ In search of... a shorter sig.
It's total cost of Operation.
American IT workers typically make 30% more than in other developed countries, ignoring altogether countries such as India. It is thereore possible that in the United States, the TCO of Linux may in some cases exceed that of Win2k. In many other countries the license for Win2K alone would exceed the TCO of a linux file/print server. In countries such as India, the cost of a Win2K license makes Linux very attractive, which may help explain the recent "Investment" by MS in that country (i.e. giving avay free Windows licences to deter defection).
Linux people tend to only think of enterprise computing (and all computing for that matter) as web servers. I think the results of IDC's study. However, web computing is only a fraction of all computing. There are a lot of databases big and small. There are many file servers. There are many print servers. There are many APPLICATION servers. There are domain controllers. etc. Microsoft spends lots of R&D on making it all work together for the end user. They also spend a lot of time and effort giving admins tools to manage end users and their desktops. Novell is the only other company/OS in this arena. NDS and Active Directory ring a bell? Software deployment sound familar to anyone? Clue: Big shops don't send PC jockeys with CDs to install applications. They get pushed down with Zenworks or GPOs. Ask a Linux administrator to setup a plan to convert all the company's desktops with little to no downtime for the users. Now ask a Novell or Microsoft admin to do it. Guess who can't get it done fast. Ask a Linux admin to use his Linux servers to lock down the users' desktops to minimize support calls. You don't think of that one often, do you? Developing these kinds of enterprise tools isn't sexy, but it is critical. Without it, Linux will always be a niche in the server room. The next time your boss decides to go with a Microsoft solution indstead of Linux, don't bitch about marketing. Realize that there is this whole other role to be filled out in the enterprise. Now get coding and fill that role!
Microsoft's Windows 2000 offers a better total cost of ownership (TCO) than Linux for most traditional server workloads over a five-year time span, according to an IDC study.
.. .? and know how Linux will develop over the course of the next 5 years as Linux is pretty much the same operating system it was 5 years ago, right...? Sure is Amazing they can predict the future so accurately.
It must be a really good report if windows 2000 offers a better TCO over 5 years. . pretty cool that they can see into the future like that, and know exactly what windows will cost tomorrow, cuz the cost has been constant for the last 5 years right
The point that Windows 2000 hasn't been out for 5 years doesn't have anything to do with the validity of the study. The same "version" of Linux hasn't been out 5 years ago either. What was the kernel at back then... 2.0? Or even older than that? What were the distros like? Were they are easy to use as they are now? Were they as bloated? Etc.
I'm not saying that the overall results of the study are right. But maybe the article is wrong, and the study really covered "Windows environments" over a 5 year period, rather than specifically Windows 2000. I think it's a given that Windows, in general, has changed alot less over the last 5 years than has Linux... which says alot in Linux's defense! Maybe the first 3 years of the study when Linux was in what I consider its commercial infancy skewed the results!
What kind of car do you drive that has a clutch connected to the steering mechanism?
Seriously, I doubt you can park easier with a stick over an automatic. If you wanted more control on an auto, all you have to do is slighly hold down on the brake and give it a little gas to fine tune the movement.
Live web cams
I don't remember seeing a 'use before' date on any linux servers. Do you?
Yep:
3:14:07 GMT Jan 19 2038 (Tue)
That's when the Unix/Linux clock rolls over.
You might have a few extra hours if you're keeping your system clock on local rather than GMT.
Linux (and any time-sensitive apps that use the appropriate system calls and/or data structures) will need a Y2K-like upgrade some time before that. For some a recompile with different includes will fix it but others may be more problematic. And like the Y2K bug we won't know for sure if we got them all until weeks after the magic date.
Fortunately, all the Unix/Linux bugs are connected to a single point source-of-failure (the undersized clock variable and related kernel data structures and system call). They can thus be tracked down in a straightforward manner. That's quite different from the Y2K bug, where an artifact of the numbering system lured people into making the same classes of error, separately, thousands of times.
Note that SOME Unix implementations (i.e. Amdahl's UTS) already expanded the clock from 32 to 64 bits, and other data structures similarly. (Amdahl did that years before Y2K - they were thinking ahead).
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Still, that's only a month or so.. let's not deprive the poor thing of a whole birthday on that account! :)
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Linux is easier to manage (says Microsoft) on a large number of machines. So how can Linux be more expensive than Windows? People who know Linux don't magically get paid 10 times the money Windows people do. They probably make about the same in most cases, given equal # of years experience and equal talent.
This study is a big Troll. The fact that it is "breaking news" ought to raise red flags for most people! tsk tsk
After doing a little research, it seems that the study was indeed commissioned by MS...the more the reason to doubt its objectivity (see the second paragraph in this Infoworld story. Meanwhile, you might want to look at another study - probably no more objective (but no less either) since it was commissioned by IBM. Still, the numbers are interesting: TCO for Linux comes at about half that of Windows. Seems a Linux adminstrator can handle 4 times as more servers as an MSCE, which accounts for most of the difference (even though the Linux admin is paid more).
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Too damnded(sorry...) right! You get what you pay for. I tried it on my computer, threw it in the bin and installed RedHat 8.0 instead.
:-p
So there
John_Chalisque