IBM Reports Indicate Linux TCO Is Lower

Tontoman writes "Information Week reports that two research reports sponsored by IBM argue that Linux is less expensive to buy and operate than Windows or Unix. The first, a Robert Frances Group study, concluded: 'Linux is 40% less expensive than a comparable x86-based Windows server and 54% less than a comparable Sparc-based Solaris server. The Linux server's costs were $40,149, compared with $67,559 for Windows and $86,478 for Solaris.' The second, a Pund-IT report, titled 'Beyond TCO--The Unanticipated Second Stage Benefits Of Linux,' indicates that 'Linux is enormously popular among IT staff members, many of whom are at the beginning of their careers, as well as with IT educators in universities and technical institutions worldwide.' This has resulted in Linux playing a significant role in the recruitment and retention of IT staff and managers."

Comments

see .pdf

[Janek Kozicki]

Actual .pdf of the study here.

Re:a couple of surprises in article

[PIPBoy3000]

I'm admittedly a Windows person for the most part, as that's the environment I live in at work. The good news about the GUI-based environment is that it's typically fairly easy to pick up a new Windows tool and figure it out. For the semi-casual administrator/developer, that can be immensely useful.

The problem is that after a certain point, it becomes difficult to figure out complex issues. When bugs pop up, it's hard to know whether it's the software's fault or your own, with no good way to peek under the hood. When trying to extend beyond an application's capabilities, you start running into hard-coded issues that make it difficult or impossible.

We're currently migrating to ASP.Net and having internal struggles about whether or not to use Visual Studio, for example. I personally dislike being hampered by the interface, though it makes certain things much easier. The catch is that you need this bulky environment in order to work with what you create, you can't easily edit things outside of the environment, and often the application creates code for you that isn't quite what you want.

So, I'm not sure there's a clear TCO value for these sort of things. Each OS and application probably needs to be evaluated for what you're trying to do. My guess is that there will be a mix of the two systems for a long time into the future. Competition is good.

WTF?

[tomstdenis]

We built 8 gentoo linux boxes in the span of two weeks here at my office.

Cost of parts: 10K
Cost of labour: two people x two weeks x 900/week = 3600$

Other costs [power/netaccess]: trivial

So for [round up] 15K we bought, assembled, built, installed and setup 8 boxes. that's a cost of roughly 2K each.

Whoopy doo.

Where the hell does 43K/yr come from? Is that the cost of the employee as well?

Well the guy we did hire to manage this, had we planned on keeping him would cost ~60K/yr which when you split over the 32 boxes in the office is trivial.

And we don't have to buy server license upgrades or what not. So really the cost of ownership above the staffer we would have had to have anyways is ZERO. Not 43K/yr.

Tom