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Australian TCO Study: Linux Wins Again

Posted by timothy on from the ask-enough-and-you-shall-receive dept.

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."

4 of 396 comments (clear)

  1. What about a larger company by Myolp · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It would be interresting to see the results of a similar study when applied to a company with a much larger number of employees. Would the results be similar in a world-wide company with 10.000 employees located in different countries?

  2. Biased in MS Favour by Karora · · Score: 4, Interesting


    It is very interesting the assumptions that they state have been made to bias this report in Microsoft's favour.

    • He said given the fact that the company deals in open source products, four aspects had been factored in to tip the scales towards Microsoft: The model was not modified to to reflect research by the Robert Frances Group which showed that Linux needed 82 percent fewer staff resources.
    • The costs of malware - viruses, spyware, worms, keyloggers, adware - were not taken into account. Zymaris said every research point found had suggested that this cost was essentially and predominantly a Windows platform cost, resulting in billions lost by business every year.
    • Costs which arose when systems need to be pre-emptively rebooted or crashed, resulting in unscheduled downtime, were not taken into account. "All our research indicates that Linux rarely if ever suffers such problems and open source platforms on the whole are extremely robust," Zymaris said.
    • "Finally, because Microsoft has claimed that introducing Linux into an environment will lead to increased reliance on external consultants, we have tripled the amount budgeted for such requirements on the Linux models," he said.

    Wow!

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  3. Re:Crap by Plug · · Score: 4, Interesting

    No, the outcome and confidence is great. It says "Even if we did everything we possibly could to sway things in the Windows direction, and ignored a bunch of Windows' costs, Linux is still cheaper".

    Still cheaper. You can't necessarily put numbers on the price of spyware and reboots, but whatever that number is, Linux is cheaper than it already. It is not a case of "Linux is free if your time has no value" - it's that "even if you value your time at 3 times the price that you would on Windows, you are still better off".

  4. Re:uh by TangoCharlie · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Sounds like you need to be using Firefox, a free open source web browser... suitablly equipped with the Adblock extension. Then you wouldn't keep seeing the Microsoft adverts :-)

    Not having to read the Microsoft adverts will therefore increase your productivity. Proof that Open Source software improves TCO!

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