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Australian TCO Study: Linux Wins Again
An anonymous reader writes "An updated Linux vs Windows TCO study has found that a 250-seat company can end up saving 36 percent if it were to equip its users with the open source operating system and applications that run on it."
Note for slashdot bias fans: "Linux wins again" is actually in the story in the link, rather than a bit of spin on the part of everyone's favourite news site :)
I'm tired of all this TCO crap. I know that they are just doing it to offset some of the "studies" that Microsoft has funded, but I wish linux groups would focus on something else.
In fact, I wish Microsoft would focus on something else. It's funny, but *cost* isn't something that seems to be a strength of MS. They should focus on their strengths (like consistent interface that everyone knows, massive hardware support, number of applications available, good multimedia support, etc). They have a lot going for them. Why do they always focus on the thing that they don't have going for them!!!!
--End rant.
Don't count your messages before they ACK.
Skippy has a point, but...
TCO studies are just standard business cost estimation models, with assumptions chosen by the authors of the study. Most of the models are pretty good, in theory, with sound reasoning and empirically-supportable construction. If they didn't work, or if they tended to provide misleading results when applied properly, why would businesses use them at all?
The problem is with the assumptions. Give me any financial model, from cost estimation to marketing models to arbitrage scenarios, and I can plug assumptions into it that will give any result you want. The models are fine, but the results are "the pits", as it were, unless the assumptions are carefully and honestly chosen.
This isn't to say that a TCO model, even with well-chosen assumptions, can provide an incredible amount of precision, but it CAN provide accuracy of result. That's what REALLY pisses me off about this article--they're quoting numbers to a whole percent, when it's pretty obvious that the precision of the result isn't anywhere near %10. If the article is to be believed, they're using intentionally pessimistic assumptions in order to bias the study against F/OSS, and still coming out with F/OSS on top. They're acknowledging that they can't bring supportable, precise assumptions into it!
So really, the study is saying "F/OSS is cheaper than MS by a good margin, but our precision is shitty enough that our actual number doesn't mean much. It might be %37 cheaper, it might be %80 cheaper, or it might be %1 cheaper--but we're pretty sure it's cheaper."
I guess it's like that old joke, where the museum guest asks the tour guide "How old are these dinosaur bones?" The guide says "The bones are 2 million and 10 years old." The guest, astonished, exclaims "That's amazing! How can we know the age so precisely, when it's that old?"
The guide responds, "Well, it was 2 million years old when I started working here, and I've been working here for 10 years."
Seriously, they really may be. They are mostly so powerful because their dominance has been self-sustaining. Everyone uses Word and Internet Explorer, because everyone else uses them, and documents are made with no concern for people with different software preferences. Word and IE tie people to Windows.
But the tide is changing. IE marketshare is falling. According to some reports, about a fifth of surfers use alteranitve browsers. That gives serious reason to make websites that work with other browsers (yes, that means you, gmail).
People are increasingly eager to abandon Windows. It's funny that lately, many of my non-CS friends have started learning to work with Linux, and it's mostly the people who think they can handle their computers who stick to Windows.
Of course, there are still applications that will tie people to Windows. However, if people actually attempt to switch, they will learn which applications and file formats cause problems, and be more open to using alternatives. I've seen this happen in several places.
Now, all this is not to say that Microsoft will go down (I personally believe they will at least survive, if not prosper). However, now that their dominance is starting to slip, there are serious opportunities for competitiors to establish themselves in the market.
And they're trying. The other day, I heard a Novell ad advocating open source on the radio. Even if they are the only one now, where one leads, others will follow.
What would really kill Microsoft's deathgrip would be if a competitor not only did the same things better, but also offered features that Microsoft doesn't. Two examples would be efficient use of metadata (a la BeOS; this is being worked on by all camps) and truly interactive web applications (like XAML promises; Java and XUL are just not good enough).
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
However, after to speaking with a few of the higher up IT guys at various trade shows and other events where we accidentally windup in the same room. I have concluded money has very little to do with us using Microsoft products. Rather it's other things like: PHB's (almost by definition) aren't highly technical people but maintainers of the status quo, "No one ever got fired for buying Microsoft", and most importantly the incredible inertia of big companies like ours
In summary: Despite the wide usage of FOSS in R&D it would take something on the scale of Nuclear War to draw enough attention & create the motivation it would require to make the change from Microsoft to anything else for the Desktop and most servers and Old 'Enterprise level' UNIX for the important stuff.
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
Given all the bias in their study, I can't assume 36% is even close to the real number.
Correct, 36% is far lower than the real number. This is a GOOD thing, so why are you complaining?
In any moderately complex field, you can't get everyone to agree that the same assumptions are true, and yet you can't even attempt to make predictions without selecting some assumptions to work from. So you take your pick, tell people what you chose, and if they disagree with your result, they can adjust it accordingly.
Consider the problem of the world's dwindling oil supply. People don't agree on how much oil exists underground, or how fast consumers will burn it. But I can make a generous assumption about quantity (twice what the USGS says) and stingy about usage (no increase over current rates), and compute that we run out in 100 years. Since any other likely assumptions will give a worst number, this "bad best case" prediction is a fine starting point to discuss long-term plans.
So why aren't we still using IBM products if no one ever got fired for buying them?
I remember when that saying went "No one ever got fired for buying IBM" and it's really not that long ago... Things change. Always have, always will.
Money for nothing, pix for free
take setting up a new website:
"oh - there's a GUI tool for that... if you installed the right package... did you pick gnome or KDE?... X isn't starting? it might just be easier to modify the .conf file with Pico... don't have that? try vi - httpd.conf should be under /etc/httpd - unless you..."
Any idiot (like myself) can fumble through doing this stuff on Windows.
Security? Go to Windowsupdate.com once a month and install all the patches. I wish I had as straight forward a solution for my Linux boxes.
don't get me wrong - I want to see open source crush microsoft - it's just there's some significant work that needs to be done on the usability / supportability front.
I think you need to remember, that, 10 year olds are versatile. The average business professional is set in their ways, and doesn't like change. That's why they work in the office, and not elsewhere. They don't think anything like a 10 year old. Very few 10 year olds are locked into their systems.
TFA stated explicitly that Open Source _is_ cheaper, by quite a margin.
What a long, strange trip it's been.
No, it is most useful as an internal evaluation tool. A company with limited resources (ie all companies) may not want to research every new technology to see if they could lower their TCO by implementing it. They might want some kind of reason to believe it is cheaper before they commit to spending on an internal evaluation. This doesn't mean that an external TCO evaluation is the only one they will have.
Windows: Press CTRL+ALT+DEL, type your username (if not filled in automaticly) and type your password.
Linux: Type your username (if not filled in automaticly) and type your password.
Training: 10 seconds: 'This is the new login screen'
Windows: Click on some world or web or 'e' icon to get internet explorer, use urls, home, back and forward buttons.
Linux: Click on soome world or web or wathever icon to get an Firefox window, use urls, home, back and forward buttons.
Training: 20 seconds: 'Click on this icon instead of the old one (the one that says INTERNET), further browsing is the same.'
Windows: Click on the word icon and type your text, click on the excel icon and fill your sheet.
Linux: Click on the swriter icon and type your text. Click on the scalc icon and fill your sheet.
Training: again pointing out the new icons.
We just covered the training for 90% of all desktop users. They simply don't know or need more.
It gets interesting when you get to the artists or the real power users but they are generally a minority or have enough brains to figure most out themselves.
Further you can swap fileservers, dns, proxies, printservers and webservers in you company wihtout this 90% even noticing.
For this 90% training is mostly comforting them to make sure they don't panic when they hear something is going to change.
Jeroen
Secure messaging: http://quickmsg.vreeken.net/
Children have the urge to learn and to try new things, for no other reason then they don't worry about a bad outcome, because any outcome is thrilling to them.
Case in point is videogames. A child is definately going to pick up how a videogame works without any prior experience easier than a 30+ year old who has never touched them.
This is not to say that being cautious is terrible, but in this situation it is prohibitive to change.
TCO is a PHB metric. Managers who don't understand the role of technology in their organization view technology as a necessary evil and want to keep the cost as low as possible.
Before looking at TCO, managers should looks at:
- how much IT increases productivity
- how much IT cuts costs in other parts of the company
These metrics are notoriously hard to measure while TCO is mostly contained within the IT budget and so is easier to calculate. An astute office politician can claim some benefits just by reducing his IT costs while ignoring the effects on the rest of the organization.However, the big gains are outside IT. If IT offers a mere 1% increase in productivity in the organization as a whole it would dwarf any savings in IT costs. If IT isn't providing those types of benefits annually, it is doing something very wrong.
Return on investment, not TCO, is a better measurement of value. Businesses that think they can cost-cut their way to success are generally doomed anyway.
If you get past that, the inclusion of Fedora Core 2 as an OS option should stop you in your tracks.
And if you manage to get past that, the needless use of, for example, enterprise versions of Windows 2003 Server should be the final indicator at how flawed their methods are.
Linux into an environment will lead to increased reliance on external consultants
... usually adds 40% to the cost of each employee on top of their wages. Now paying 3 times as much for a consultant is now closer to 2 times as much as a normal employee and if this external consultant or external administrator can maintain you Linux Boxen 1 or 2 times per week you are saving money vs. Having a full time employee.
Oddly enough the high costs of external consultants is often greatly exaggerated. Unlike full time employees who need other benefits as well Health Care, Retirement,
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Identify the functionality that each of those provides and WHY it is necessary for an administrator.
Only then can you compare/contrast the two platforms.I don't see anyone claiming that.
Here's an example: Package management.
On Debian, it is ultra-simple. And every file belongs to a package and that is controlled by the package management system.
On Windows, there isn't any system-based link between the files and what package installed them. Any package can update any file.
This becomes important when you're managing multiple workstations. With Debian, it is trivial to verify files to packages and packages between machines to troubleshoot a problem.
With Windows, it is far more difficult and usually results in the proverbial reboot, reload, re-install.
men, you are so right!.
.... training was a 2hr presentation to inform them about policies and procedures, and to just show them the Linux desktop and off they went to use the system and do their work.
We hired 15 new staff (50+ total) during the last 2 months; and guess what
Now, moving the initial 18+ staff over from Windows/Office/Outlook to Linux/OpenOffice/Evolution, that was a real pain; but now that we became a Linux shop, new staff fits just right in. People tends to give their best effort (and not complain that much) when they start a new job, don't they?
We still have some issues with crappy formatted MS-Word documents (frames instead of rows in a table, anyone?) or VB script ridden Spreadsheets we get from third parties, but our administrative assistants have become pretty good at "fixing" those documents if we need to keep using them in the future (Styles and the Navigator in OpenOffice make a breeze to work with large documents).
Now, what is important is to keep staff training going on a continuos basis, after all, you don't want people doing the same old same old on your shiny new system, and making the same formating errors, and creatring the same crappy Access type (pseudo)databases, or keeping mission critical data on (now)OpenOffice Calc spreadsheets, etc.
Erik.
There are several alternatives to exchange. Suse has one, there is also bill groupware, kolab and citadel.
Of course there are commercial software too such as groupwise, lotus notes, hp openmail, bynari etc.
Exchange is no longer a barrier.
evil is as evil does
So, Windows users may feel some frustration when your site moves to Linux, but any damage they do is strictly limited to themselves. And if some users prove truly inept, you can always set their accounts to run a limited set of applications, or indeed anything else you choose to meet your requirements.
Windows is like one of those elaborate but boring toys which you can only use for passive kinds of play. Linux and Unix are designed to be used like Lego. You're supposed to take the pieces and use them to create something. This does require a somewhat different mindset, and has different implications.
One consequence is the insight that a discussion concerning you the designer can imply a different person with not just different privileges but a different environment than you the user.
Parity: What to do when the weekend comes.