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Choosing Microsoft Products May Cost 10-40% More
securitas writes "Jupiter Research has issued a report that says businesses that choose to stay with Microsoft products may end up paying anywhere from 10%-40% more than if they chose another solution. Software Assurance clients will see the lowest costs and SA-have-nots will see the highest costs. The rationale is that Microsoft's strategy of integrating server and client software, as it has done with the new Windows Server 2003 and Microsoft Office 2003 suite, will force costly upgrades and licenses. Ultimately the goal is to transform Office into a platform instead of a collection of applications. Analyst Joe Wilcox says, "Microsoft argues that increased integration will cut down ongoing costs, maintenance and what not, but whether that will be the case has yet to be seen. The increased acquisition costs, though, are pretty clear." This leaves the door open for other office suites like Corel WordPerfect, Sun StarOffice and OpenOffice. More on costs and integration at Jupiter/Wilcox's Microsoft Monitor Blog."
2. Consumers who use Microsoft have to pay more
The logic is impressive.
That's assuming they download every single piece of software from the project sites and order no distributions of Linux, etc. from large companies like Red Hat or Mandrake.
Sorry, my karma just ran over your dogma.
No, you have to think of the TCO. Support, training, updates, IT staff, time spent, etc...
No solution is cost free.
FuckMicrosoft.com has the largest list of Microsoft-alternative software that I have ever seen.
Pretty much.
There are other costs associated with software than the upfront cost paid. This article does not account for those costs. Second, for those under SA you don't see the big costs of upgrading.
Costs that come up when switch.
Testing (QA) on the new product, mainly to help develop some means of support across the organization; ie standards. You also have to determine the best install of the package and how to deliver it. (is it easy to push?)
Training. Sure it might LOOK like package X. The key is finding the quirks that generate support calls and find solutions.
Prior investment. If it works, its even cheaper to not upgrade and keep the old stuff.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
I assume you're joking, however I'll still bite. You've made several bad assumptions:
I mean, if you think of software as only needing x amount of functionality in the first place, with little or no noticable productivity gains seen from upgradeing to the next major version, the question will pop up; Why upgrade at all?
I for one am shocked by these figures.
;)
10-40% is far too low to be plausible.
This leaves the door open for other office suites like Corel WordPerfect, Sun StarOffice and OpenOffice.
IIRC, MS Office costs anywhere from 2 or 3 times, in the case of WP, to 00 (that should be an infinity, but two zeros side by side is the best I could do) times, in the case of OOo, as much as MS Office. To my recollection, MS Office has always cost lots more than its competitors, but plenty of people still buy it and plenty of people frown at the idea of a "work-alike" or whatever you want to call it. As much as I would like to see Corel, Sun and OOo eat MS's lunch on the office suite (and I think we are approaching that) there is lots of inertia to overcome.
"Microsoft argues that increased integration will cut down ongoing costs, maintenance and what not, but whether that will be the case has yet to be seen...
Yeah, like how integration of IE into windows OS has cut down on maintenance costs.
If you look at the actual article, they note that "Wilcox estimates that firms taking Microsoft up on its offer to integrate back-end processes with front-end client software on the desktop may run up tabs 10 to 40 percent higher than with earlier editions of Microsoft's products, depending on the server licenses and client access licenses (CALs) they purchase. "
That is all. This is not a comparison against Linux, Macintosh or whatever competing Office suites may be left. This is simply an alalysis of how Microsoft's vendor lock-in--- umm, i mean, how the vertical integration of Microsoft's products affects the amount that companies will pay to use those products.
Isn't it grand how monopolies lower prices for consumers because they're more Efficient? Ahhh.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Or just install Debian, which has everything prepackaged... and incedently is free too.
I can't speak for my entire organization, but I can speak for my department of 20 people.
We've made the switch away from Microsoft. About 2/3 of us use RH9; the other 1/3rd use Mac OS X. I'm one of the linux guys.
In a nutshell, we've managed (with some pain) to completely unload Microsoft. Pretty good, eh?
Our primary Office products are Open Office and Mozilla (for Web & Email).
Needless to say, we are an IT-centric organization, so we can take care of ourselves pretty well. In addition, our organization never standardized on the "viral" Microsoft practices, namely "MS-Exchange".
The savings? Well, for starters, there is the fee for Microsoft Office for 20 people. Plus we were able to get rid of our IT support guy (he was a contractor - we paid about $50k/year for his services - VERY PART TIME).
That's all pretty substantial $$$ - and it's money that flows right out the door.
The downside? Well, none really. It was difficult at first - we had a bunch of older docs in Visio and PPT 2000 format and stuff like that.
Now we have one PC in the office just for Windows.
It's kind like the old days when you had an unused microfiche machine in the back room.
Well, we just replaced 30 of our desktops at work with Debian.
Exchange was a bit of trouble of course, but we did get it solved. www.opengroupware.org.
Otherwise, our setup is pretty easy. OpenLDAP is our directory server... like AD, it hosts users/groups/otherstuff. Each desktop is configured to get account information from it.
Home directories are mounted over NFS.
Email is handled by Postfix, Cyrus IMAP. Two very easy packages.
OpenGroupware let use get teh Calendar/Contact stuff. We're using their Web Interface on Linux. We don't have a whole lot of shared stuff going on, so it's totally fine.
Outlook can connect to OGo with the ZideLOok plugin, which isn't free, obviously, as you have to license MAPI stuff.
ALl in all though, we came out better. Where it took me (the only IT employee except my boss) 100% of my time to just manage the windows workstations/servers, deploy patches, come in on weeks, etc, it's still just me... and im pretty bored most of the time. Other than the few windows workstations we have left (5?) nothing ever breaks... ever. At all.
Cost wise... we used Debian. It's monitarily free. All the packages are free. ZideLook set us back a bit for the 5 workstations... but overall it saves me enough time to be worth it.
Oh, we got our VB6 applications working too. I came up with an ingenious idea for this. Run them thru the VB7 conversion wizard. Patch them up a bit, and then run them on Mono. It actually WORKS.
I'd say, we spent... total on actual products, 400$.
Took me about a week of my time to learn all the packages. Now, I know im a smart person, but it took me over a month to fully understand AD to the same level I understand what we've set up now.
Oh, Samba 3.0 is authenticating with LDAP too... that services our domain needs.
You can log onto Unix, and your home directory is there... and then log onto windows, and behold H: is also your home directory.
Password synchronization was EASY. Samba 3.0 has it built in. 2.2 was a LOT harder (had to write a script, or download a script from the net).
OpenOffice for our office stuff. HEre we had a bit of a problem. We had some very complex spreadsheets running in Excel. I'm talking hundreds of macros. Insane stuff. THey're still running on the windows box. But this is ancient stuff, we really wanna rewrite it web based anyways...
Anyways, it's not as hard as people think. Overall it IS cheeper. It runs a lot better too.
TCO is dead. Long live ROI!
dear worker drones:
- My Documents is now
/home/drone
- you'll be using mozilla instead of IE for the internet. you'll notice the lack of popups.
- the big K = start button
Thanks.management.
p.s. since we have transitioned over to linux, and saved shitloads, we'll be upping the christmas, er, holiday bonus this year.
sure, there is support options. but look at it this way: if you save money on software licenses, virus attacks, security holes, etc., then you got a few bucks to hire a linux admin. nuff said. it is that easy. businesses just have to be willing to bite the bullet.
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
"Only in their dreams can men truly be free 'twas always thus, and always thus will be."
--Tom Schulman
Integration has been known to lower costs. Microsoft uses integration in a rather clever manner than takes advantage of that assumption. When you buy a single microsoft product, it is becoming increasingly difficult not to have to buy a whole slew of products just to use it. As someone pointed out in another slashdot comment, Exchange 2003 server requires AD which requires Windows 200x. Microsoft has been slowly increasing dependencies between products since windows 95. This is a good business practice in that it provides a way of generating revenue while looking cheaper short term. But initial cost is only 10% of TCO. I challenge that assumption because if you just want to upgrade to Exchange Server 2007, you will probably need a complete infrastructure upgrade. Or even better, you upgrade to Office 2007 and need an infrastructure upgrade. That is the path microsoft is following. In terms of employee training (admins, even with excellent training will still have to figure out the quarks/implications of the new software. Most available training for Microsoft products is far from excellent.), business disruption, etc. that certainly raises the cost. It is more difficult to measure since their is no way to compare without using a different setup. I am constantly amazed that Microsoft is pushing businesses toward a disruptive 3 year upgrade cycle despite the increased cost to customers and I am even more amazed how many customers are still sticking with Microsoft. Well, it's their money.
The article is not about the cost difference between say Office and Open Office, but between the current pricing and software structure versus the future.
It would be ludicrous to use this articele as a vehicle to prove the viability of Star Office, say, versus Office. I find the description of this article very misleading. Any new generation/paradigm(is it a paradigm? I'll check Kuhn) can result in a rise in total cost of acquisition or even ownership.
This applies to any software, free or not. If PHP or HTTP were radically changed, would it not require significant investment to reintegrate old applications? IPv6, while necessary in the lon run will undoubetedly cause an initial cost of migration.
What are the costs of migrating from office to Open Office? What are the costs of then intregrating Open Office into the organization as tool for scheduling, data sharing, etc.?
Hrm, shame you posted as an AC because you bring up some very good points.
/. MCSE's are easier to find. Some of them actually even know what they are doing but...still.
I think many people like the functionality of MS products, like Exchange, and think that moving over to something else will be a very big hassle so they just stay with an all MS solution but they just don't know enough.
Key of course is getting a good set of admins and then letting them goto work. Of course having a good set of admins is key for any enterprise level IT but as has been noted many times before here on
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
It's not really the integration that I object to, some things are nice to have. But on the other side, Word being integrated? Why do you need Word on a server, for a server you need one text editor; NOTEPAD.
Don't call my crazy, that's what they called me back in the home!
absolutely.
....etc etc etc.
from someone who has been in several med/large corporate environments...i.e. 500, 1000, 3000, 15,000 strong and sbc as well (200,000)
i can say with certainty that training is a complete farse.
in the best of environments, it nets you almost nothing. we're not talking about On The Job Training...whereby one learns their job by doing their job.
i'm talking about classes, conferences, on staff trainers...in house and out sourced Microsoft Office training, Windows 101
it's a load of crap.
if you've got a boat load of stupid people on your staff..you are so screwed...cause training isn't going to help.
sharp ppl will figure things out, good departments pull together to make sure new additions get EXACTLY the knowledge they need to do their job...no more no less.
i'm sure a few exceptions exist...and i'm sure they will be replying shortly.
do busineses really sit down and say, "first you take the mouse, move it over the text, push and hold the button, no the left one..."
Hell yes, they do! And it's not because their employees are "stupid" or whatever other moronic arguments you make.
If you work in IT, then it's obvious that you know something about how to use a computer. Sure, some companies expect some people in some jobs to have computer literacy skills, and usually those skills are on MS Office, or Wordperfect or Lotus 1-2-3. Training and retraining really is expensive. People in, say, accounting or manufacturing know how to do THEIR jobs, not YOURS. They don't spend their days tinkering with computers, they spend it doing a real job for which they get paid real money.
If you were to take my marketing job, I GUARANTEE you would get your ass handed to you, day in and day out, forever. You don't know how to use a machine tool? You don't know how to close a company's quarterly books? You don't know how the mailroom works? Boy, you must be a complete moron.
Yes, you're expected to know how to "use a freaking computer". That computer is called an x86 personal computer running Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office. My marketing job is not valuable unless I know how to use that OS and those applications, and I know how to use them well.
Secondly, governments are not in the business of spending money. They are 'in the business' of providing common services that can be more effectively done collectively. Courts, police, fire departments, military, highways, schools are example of activities that are done by governments. As you may guess, these services take ... money. Real people do these services and they deserve to be paid with real money. Grrr .. I wish everyone else would just work for free, its so much better for me.
There is good evidence that governments can do certain tasks more efficiently than private industry. The US healthcare system consumes about 13.6% of GDP. The French healthcare system consumes about 10.6%. Which system covers 100% of the population? (France). In which system do doctors still makes housecalls? (France). Which system has a lower infant mortaility rate? (France) Which system requires the doctor's office to spend several minutes verifying that you have insurance and figuring out how much you have to pay for todays visit (US). By the way, the French system doesn't mall all doctors state employees, many doctors are in private practice - they only have to deal with one set of bureactrats to get paid.
Think global, act loco
In the U.S. at least, tax brackets are incremental. Someone in the 40% bracket doesn't pay 40% on all his income; only that over the threshold of the 40% bracket. Thus, reducing one's income into the next lower tax bracket doesn't result in a whole bunch of income suddenly being taxed at a lower rate--it already was being taxed at the lower rate.
If anybody needs a clear demonstration of how one can manipulate people by using facts and footnotes, this article is it. Forget about reading Al Franken's book about the right-wing media, this lesson has been adopted all journalists.
Basically the argument boils down to this...
If you look at Office 2003 and see all the wonderful features touted, you may have to pay 10-40% more than previous Office products to take full advantage of all the features touted.
Pay careful attention to that phrase "features touted", as that's the key of this argument. The fact is you don't have to pay for integration if you don't want to use the features. You can continue to use Office with all the existing features it's ever had in a non-integrated fashion and paying about the same.
In fact this guy isn't even arguing that the competition offers the same features for less. They don't. They just assume you don't want them.
So somehow Microsoft is being dishonest in touting features of Office because they might involve integrating with extra server products.
Uhh, whatever.
I'm intelligent, I can look at products from multiple vendors, find out the system requirements to make the product perform the features they claim, and then add up the total cost.
This article is more manipulative and deceptive than Microsoft's marketing group.
If I am taught what a door looks like, and how it works, I can be reasonably sure it will work that way for all doors (or most, anyway). I don't have to be re-trained for every door I encounter, because they are similar enough that I can easily figure out how to resolve any variation between them. I think it can be reasonably argued that the Linux desktop is similar *enough* to Windows, that the "retraining" we keep hearing about might not really be that be big an issue.
I don't understand, I don't have any K on my computer, but I think a cracker got into my computer, he even left a footprint.
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,