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A New Look at Linux vs. Windows TCO
An anonymous reader writes "Laura DiDio, research fellow at the Yankee Group, published a column this morning in which she discusses key findings from a new survey on the total cost of ownership of Windows vs. Linux. DiDio often is written off by the Linux camp as being pro-Microsoft, but she offers excellent, neutral advice for any IT department considering a fundamental systems switch: 'If you do not know what is on your network, if you cannot at least estimate the hourly, monthly or yearly cost of downtime, if you do not know how long it takes to recover from a security outage, if you cannot answer questions about the extent of your company's license compliance, then you cannot truly evaluate whether Linux, Windows or Unix is right for your business. Chances are, if you cannot answer most or all of those questions, it does not matter what operating system you have because ignorance of the core TCO tenets means that your business is not getting the most out of its networks.' "
this article really didn't inform much.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_DiDio
That says it all.
You're confusing DiDio with O'Gara.
Criticism of a previous Didio study related to Linux TCO...
... does this sound professional to you?
Laura Didio whines that slashdot does not like her...
Quote from wikipedia by Didio: "The thing about Linux is, you can talk about a free, open operating system all you want, but you can't take that idea of free and open and put it into a capitalist system and maintain it as though it is some kind of hippie commune or ashram, because if you can do it like that, at that point I'm like, 'Pass the hookah please!'". And on another occasion she followed up: "I'm all for open source, and competition serves everyone's interest. But if Linux is really to take its place alongside Windows... then the vendors in this space cannot act like a bunch of hippies in a '60s commune or ashram. There really is no such thing as a free lunch."
Collection of Laura Didio quotes, compiled by Groklaw, on the subject of Didio insisting that she'd seen the linux-sco code comparison and it contained clearly copied code. This was posted, mind you, on the day that the judge ordered SCO to either provide the evidence linux contained copied sco code or drop those accusations from their lawsuit, and SCO resonded by dropping those accusations. In other words, the evidence never existed. There was never any copied code and SCO has as good as admitted so in court by their refusal to specify what the copied code was when the court ordered them to.
Laura Didio has made it clear she is not someone worth giving the slightest bit of attention or media press to. She has in the past shown a complete lack of any idea of rigor in compiling or presenting a study, as well as a willingness to both mislead and outright lie. This is not someone who knows how to do journalism, or how to do an informed study. This is someone who knows how to do one thing and one thing only, and that is shill for Microsoft when Microsoft pays them to. Right now she is shilling for Microsoft. Microsoft press releases released from Microsoft itself may occasionally contain good points or true statements, such as "Microsoft is a company located in Redmond". However, even when this is the case they don't get printed on the front page. Why should Microsoft press releases released through the front of Didio be treated any different?
Ms DiDio's report has been here since November 2004.
I find it to be quite the opposite. The company I work for switched to Linux, which cost A LOT of money up front. We had to train new people, hire *nix gurus and a bunch of other stuff. But maintenance costs are MUCH cheaper.
So yeah, if you're switching OS's it is going to be a large initial investment, but Linux will save us big time in the long run.
It wasn't Laura DiDio who invaded PJ's privacy. it was Maureen O'Gara (of course, with the assistance of SCO).
We haven't heard much from Maureen since...
Ahem. The article is actually a shameless plug for DD's employer, the Yankee group, which offers IT consultancy 'n stuff. No more, no less.
Something bad is coming when people are suddenly anxious to tell the truth.
As a support for the parent a capital markets (financial trading) bank I worked in had 144 unix servers and desktops (yes desktops) and close to 250 windows servers and desktops. there were 5 unix admins and 1 manager and 15 windows admins and 5 managers. the unix stuff was what pushed all the real money and rarely had outages, and the admins worked 8:30 to 4:30 on the dot if that. Windows guys were so overworked that it was hard to get them to make improvements..
every other place I have worked, if it had windows which wasn't many, was the same.
every place I worked, when millions of dollars were on the line it was *nix.
Some feel DiDio took her apparent anti-open source agenda too far with a series of snide pot-shots at the various enemies of SCO that hit below the belt. So while she may not have performed the same actions as O'Gara, she certainly seems to belong to the same club. There are journalists, and then there are advocates who masquerade as journalists. Once someone feels the need to travel down a path that leads only to slander and other personal attacks on individuals who happen to be "on the other side", whether you're a cheap technology journalist like DiDio or O'Gara, or a successful political hack like Robert Novak, your credibility is ruined.
DiDio would do well to ask herself if she wants to be a columnist or a journalist. And if the latter, she'd probably do well to move to a different industry.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
DiDiot isn't a reporter -- she's an analyst with the Giga Group, which used to be Forrester Research. So she's got a significantly more influence than just a reporter. People (PHBs mostly) listen to her and make decisions about whether or not buy or use a particular technology. Some companies have stayed away from Linux based on DiDiot's comments.
My blog
Perhaps, but it's in line with my experience. For me it's a bit simpler, just go through and count the trouble tickets. Systems hosted on Windows machines get twice as many complaints about outtages or down time than the sites running on a LAMP platform. If I'm going to get woken up in the middle of the night, it's almost always a Windows box.
Sure you can argue it's the application or the coding skill and it doesn't take into account the popularity and traffic of the application, but that would seem to even out across 30 or 40 apps.
At least across the companies I work with, the Windows servers need more attention. And they need to be rebooted more often, rebuilt from scratch more often and they will slow down over time. I'm not sure how you can label my observation wishful thinking. It is what it is. I run Linux at home and my personal web sites on LAMP servers because I don't have to dork with them as much.
I wonder when the last time Didiot actually had any hands on experience with server? Armchair quarterbacks aren't limited to Sunday afternoons.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage