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Yankee Group Survey Says Windows, Linux TCO Equal
prostoalex writes "A new survey by Yankee Group analyst Laura DiDio shows Windows and Linux are viewed as equal by U.S. businesses. In the eternal OS wars, '88 percent of respondents said that the quality, performance and reliability of Windows was equal to or better than Linux.' Companies were also asked to rank the operating systems on security. On a scale of 1 to 10 'companies rated Microsoft's security at 7.6, double the rating in a similar survey conducted last year. Linux's rating was mostly the same at 8.3.' Conclusion? 'DiDio said that most companies -- whether large or small -- rarely take the huge step of replacing one operating system with another. Instead, they usually add a mix of Windows and Linux server software to expand functionality.' Microsoft used last year's Yankee Group survey results in their Get the facts campaign."
Because obviously the people never have either.
"there are three types of lies, lies, damn lies, and stats." It looks like this has all three types of lies.
To add to the parent's comment, in the 90's Linux advocates' main argument over Windows was "stability". But with the movement from Windows9x to the NT-based Windowses (Windows 2000 and XP) the "stability" argument no longer plays. Today, Linux advocates main argument is "security". Look for that argument to go by the way side in the same way as the "stability" argument has.
Lastly, in 10 years, Windows went from Win3.1 to Windows XP, a vastly higher improvement rate than Linux enjoyed over the same time period, and the respective rates will continue into the future. (Note that Mac enjoyed a similar improvement rate over the last 10 years as that of Windows; both are passing Linux by.)
-- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000
Oh shutup. You are just pissed you can't figure out how to get the version you got off bittorrent to work. I bought XP. I have changed the hardware more than 10 times, but I just asked them (back when they used live people) to reset my activation count and they did.
I find windows easy to use and install, call me a point a click nub, but if i can do alot without having to remember commands, it works in my favor. So in closing, i think you cant say Win or Lin is better because they excel in different things, and I think the geek world needs to accept both in order for it to move on.
My opinion is if you want to be a "point and click n00b" as you put it, use a Mac. I personally don't want stupid Windows users moving over to Linux, because they will just get confused and even Mandrake will have to become more user-friendly (good luck to them on that O_o).
I really don't like the approach that MS and some (most? not sure...) of the Linux community are treating this. They treat it as if it were a competition, a pissing contest. Don't try to convert people to Linux unless you think they would like it better, don't tell them "this is better, use it instead".
You were doing well until you blew yourself up with an inane and stock pseudo-political cliche comment. Any objective person reading this is going to dimiss you as a zealot, and have that much of a lower opinion of Linux and open source software in general.
.. is how long has this dumb broad been living under a rock.
Windows equal to Linux regarding TCO? Never happened, never will. What part of "f r e e" do those morons not understand?