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Ret. World Bank CTO on Desktop Linux TCO Facts
comforteagle writes "W. McDonald Buck, retired CTO of World Bank, believes we need to take a more honest and frank look at the Cost Analyses it will take to put Linux on the corporate desktop. In Part I of Corporate Desktop Linux - The Hard Truth he begins with one of the most common misconceptions... that a business can buy a computer without Windows and save money in the transaction."
I think you are ignoring who the article author is.
For techies, building your own or going with not so mainstream manufacturers isn't a problem.
But for W. McDonald Buck, retired CTO of World Bank, he wants a big name, 1st tier manufacturer to supply his PC, not Joe Bobs PC Hardware Shack.
The point Buck makes is:
The boxes with Windows are less expensive than the boxes without.
Or to be more accurate:
It looks to me, however, like the Microsoft monopoly has such a stranglehold on the tier 1 manufacturers that it is now not possible for a corporate shopper to save money by avoiding Windows unless they are prepared to go outside the first tier...... Small businesses may buy computers this way if they have or hire somebody tech savvy to help them, but I don't think this is how your average homeowner buys, and I know it isn't how large companies buy.
Which is the main point he makes. The big players, including IBM, are still shills for the Microsoft tax.
Mr. Buck tried to take the cost of a box without Windows installed, and compare it to a box that does have windows installed.
.doc files perfectly, but that is hardly the fault of the developers. They have done a great job reverse-engineering the format as best they can so that it renders well in OO.
What he forgot to mention is that any serious business trying to get some work done "the Microsoft way" must own a copy of MS office for each computer in their workspace. So for a small business who can't afford huge site licenses, that's going to add another $379.00 to the cost of each workstation. Even if the bundled windoze works out to only $20 a machine, you are still out $400 per worksation just to open and read your doc and xls files.
Another consideration is that in the Windoze world, you pretty much have to have a full-blown installation for each user. Yes, I know you can do thin-clients with windows too, but there isn't an easy and inexpensive way to do this for small businesses.
Also take into account that once a business reaches a certain size they are going to need dedicated backup servers, mail server, exchange server, etc. All this stuff costs $$$ to implement, and is usually more expensive than the linux alternative.
We run a small business and power our entire sales and support department on LTSP-based thin-client terminals. The cost of each workstation? Well let's do the math:
* Pentium II computers, bought from an auction, by the pallet. About $3.00 per workstation.
* 17" CRT monitor - brand new $89.00
* Fedora Core Linux - FREE as in freedom AND as in beer. w00t!
* OpenOffice - Free.
I am not going to include the cost of my time as a sysadmin, because I'm going to get paid to do my job whether the end-users are on windows or linux. I probably spend less time troubleshooting things now that we are using linux so ostensibly the cost of tech support is *less* but I don't have the empirical evidence to back it up.
The server running LTSP has 4 gigs of memory and a Pentium 4 processor and handles up to 20 users quite nicely without even getting close to dipping into the swap file. They are all running web browser, Open Office, and Evolution pretty much all day long. I expect that this particular server could support up to 30-35 users before we saw a big performance hit. This server cost less than $2000 to configure.
My LTSP workstations are so cheap they are nearly disposable. Oh, dropped your computer on the floor? Power supply burned out? Let me pull another one out of storage, plug it in, and off you go. Try that with your windows boxen.
Yes, I'm aware that you can put openoffice on a windows box and use that, but why would you do that when OO, Firefox, and Evolution are available for linux?
The only groups that I would *not* recommend this solution to would be companies that use and depend on a lot of doc and xls files that are heavily formatted and full of macros. Open Office still can't quite render all
All in all, Linux is easier to use, and less expensive but to really find that out you have to take more into account than just the difference between an off-the-shelf computer from IBM or Dell, and the similar no-os computer.
no you are wrong.
a VERY large company can get much better pricing without windows and from DELL.
He may be a smart guy but he is making some really DUMB mistakes trying to get TCO information.
NO corperation on this planet goes to Dell's website and configures up a computer, and presses the "order 10,000" button. you call a personal Sales Associate.
That is what I did, his first quote was in line with the article until I threw the quote back at them saying, "not good enough, HP is mre than willing to do what it takes to get our business, that includes not charging us for windows."
The quote came back over $250.00 per machine lower and the line that mentioned XP pro was actually removed from the quotation.
The machines arrived with no OS.
Maybe when the author of the article starts thinking and acting like how a company will get their PC's then we will get a fail TCO.
Until then he is acting like joe-blow off the street looking for 1 pc, and this is not the way to get a fair TCO.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.