Windows Cheaper When Studied by MSFT Analysts

richdun writes "Here is a study done by an independent research firm which claims that under certain circumstances, it is cheaper to develop applications and enterprise solutions for Windows than for Linux. They cite costs from more education, time developing, etc. Of course, the story is quick to state that the whole study was funded and commissioned by our favorite Redmond, WA based software giant. "

Comments

some quotes

[rokzy]

"The world's largest software maker, which is facing increased competition from Linux -- the open-source software standard that can be copied and modified freely -- hired Giga Research, which found that licensing, associated software, maintenance, labor, and training was 25 percent to 28 percent cheaper on Windows for certain types of applications."

and

"Last December, Microsoft released a study that showed that Windows-based servers were cheaper to run than those on Linux in four out of five common server tasks."

how can anyone trust crap like this? WHAT TYPE OF APPLICATIONS? WHAT SERVER TASKS?

Re:You can't beat free!

[PainKilleR-CE]

The study doesn't really have much to do with Linux, except that it was the OS used to host the J2EE apps. It's a study of the costs of developing web-based software for .Net vs. J2EE.

The study was based on interviews with 12 companies, seven of which use Microsoft's .NET platform and five of which use Linux.

Forrester said that the main difference in cost was not due to price of the basic software, but rather the price of developing the software, including labor costs.

Despite the difference in costs, however, the Forrester report also noted that "many organizations will adopt Linux instead of Microsoft's alternative" because of the expertise they have built up on the Unix platform, Sun's proprietary operating systems used to run computer server networks.

Not that I hold much faith in 'interviews with 12 companies' as a solid foundation for a sweeping generalization on the costs of development, but it's easy, for me, to see how developing for a Java platform would be more expensive for some people than developing for the .Net platform.