RSSStudy: Linux and Windows Costs Equal
By Scott M. Fulton, III | Published September 25, 2006, 5:22 PM
Marking what could have been a summer-long hiatus in its "Get the Facts" campaign, Microsoft is re-igniting the flames on the argument over whether enterprises spend less to manage Windows systems than Linux systems.
This morning, the company touted a study it commissioned from independent analyst Mercer Management Consulting, which made the case that companies that implement migration programs away from UNIX systems based on the need to adopt new applications -- what Mercer calls "transformational migrations" -- now tend to choose Windows over Linux.
The reason for this choice, the Mercer paper contends, is that IT managers have given considerable thought to recent IDC numbers -- which the Mercer paper cited -- stating Windows has a lower total cost of ownership (TCO) for businesses than Linux. Mercer did not conduct its own TCO study, but instead studied UNIX migration programs from 30 of its clients.
One of the paper's key claims is that businesses that choose Linux over Windows for their UNIX migrations tend to be less rigorous in how they ascertain potential TCO savings.
"Many IT executives at companies that migrated from Unix to Linux admitted, when interviewed for this study," the paper states, "that the decisions to move from Unix to Linux (rather than Windows) often are based on intuitive expectations of savings and preconceived notions about the ease of migrating specific workloads to Linux."
The paper quotes one IT manager representing the minority viewpoint as saying, "You don't have to do an ROI analysis to understand it makes sense to switch to a platform [Linux] that is a factor of 3 or 4 cheaper." Microsoft commissioned Mercer to perform the study.
In a press release/interview with Mercer consultant John Wenstrup, Microsoft quoted him as saying the cost of the operating system license is not the driving factor in TCO today.
"When some companies are considering migration," said Wenstrup, "they assume that the costs of the hardware and software platforms are the overriding cost elements. In fact, what we found is that most of the cost of migration -- around 80-85 percent -- is composed of the labor of executing the migration and the ongoing labor associated with managing the environment. The total cost of the entire hardware and software platform -- including maintenance costs -- tends to only be 15 to 20 percent of total migration costs."
The cost of the software platform itself, Wenstrup contends, is only about 2% of total TCO, or as much as 5% when ongoing software maintenance costs are factored in.
For Linux proponents' part, IBM continues to cite an August 2005 study it commissioned from independent analyst Robert Frances Group (PDF file here), stating overall costs of Linux ownership tends to cost businesses 40% less than Windows over a three-year period.
The cost of maintenance for Linux applications is still much higher, the Frances Group study contents, although that paper believes maintenance to be a lower percentage of overall TCO than hardware costs, but doesn't give a specific breakdown. The right hardware choice, the Frances paper implies, makes all the difference - and reminds readers that IBM commissioned the study.
The Mercer study contends hardware costs can constitute up to 11% of TCO, with the cost of migrating software and applications consuming up to 42% of costs, and ongoing administration costs about 28%.
The Frances study examined 20 clients who were using Windows, Linux and Solaris across their enterprise over a three-year period. All clients were running Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) on their servers, but it contends that the Windows and Solaris clients both tended to assign separate teams to the operating system and to the JVM, whereas the Linux-based clients pooled these support teams together. Here is where the Linux clients enjoyed the biggest cost savings, said the Frances study.
"The high cost of Linux is misleading, and does not indicate a difficulty in managing JVMs on Linux," states the Frances paper. Although it says the higher efficiency of Linux-based hardware does enable clients to purchase fewer servers to perform the same workload, it goes on to say the real cost savings is strategic: specifically, by employing fewer people to administer services, and creating fewer administrative departments to be delegated among a larger IT staff.
As Mercer's Wenstrup admitted to Microsoft, some of the clients in its study performed substantial TCO analysis, and did not actually come to the conclusion that either operating system was substantially less expensive than the other.
"Quite surprisingly to us, the vast majority of companies who performed even moderately rigorous TCO analysis made it clear that the risk-adjusted returns for migrations suggested Windows was often essentially a wash with Linux -- and sometimes even advantaged -- on total costs," said Wenstrup. He went on to quote one client who said, because Linux and Windows "provided about the same TCO," the company could make its choice based on applications and availability.
The fact that the IBM-commissioned study pointed to the low price of Linux-based hardware, and the Microsoft-commissioned study pointed to the advantages of being able to choose based on applications, should surprise very few.
.......... POINTS ............
In the REAL world folks...... LINUX COSTS MORE/or the SAME!
IF you take into consideration that 98% (there-abouts)of the "employees", who have gone to "school" to learn to work in "offices", have been "taught" WINDOWS and WINDOWS applications. PERIOD.. COST to the "company's" to "train" these "employees" has just "DROPPED" because "THEY" do NOT have to really "train" these people (Our FINE educational institutions have done that for them).
NOW those "same" "employees" have to be "trained" to work with "MAC or LINUX". COST to the "company's" just went WAY up. Instructors to "teach" the OS, Instructors to teach the "Progams to be used (aka.. OpenOffice or the "MAC" couter-part). THIS doesn't even INCLUDE the IT Department's roll in being "trained".
I am NOT the biggest fan of Microcrap.... BUT.. They have had MAY years to "Perfect" their game.... NOT their software.. Just their game.
It is like the Automobile -v- Train.... THE MAIN reason we(In the US) use cars is because (Ford and others) convenced the GOVERNMENT to build "highways/roads". EACH railroad had to (buy land, buy ALL the parts, and lay the lines)all on THEIR own. COST to railroad (A Sh*t load). US Government "paid" for and "maintains" the "highways/roads". COST to automobile industry.. $0.00 (not a frigggen penny). Microsoft=car-industry , Linux/Mac=railroad. YOU DO THE MATH!
..
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|If it were true that the cost are equal, then Linux still has the advantage due to futre and expansion costs being lower, if existant at all. Also, Linux gives the company the opportunity to access the source code without restriction or signing legal documents, etc in order to mae modifications or pertinent alterations that may tailer the OS to their specific uses. The only advantage windows holds here is in the applications base where many of the moost widely used and popular business apps are distributed only for use on Windows. Time and creativity will eventually remove that advantage also once Linux developers decide to get "into" the business desktop.
The SMMMMB market is almost starving for affordable, fully functioning applications that they will be able to implement in their business without going broke. Linux will be the OS and development community to address this best and first.
Once SMB migrates, bigger, B2B corps will also migrate or respond in some similiar fasion if only to maintain the ability to continue doing business with these SMB's.
Just my 2 cents, ante up
Big Bear
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|I've used Gentoo Linux and Windows 2003 on my server, and while there's no doubt that Gentoo is more powerful and flexible, there's about 1 person in 10,000 who can take advantage of Gentoo's power.
If you are writing training modules for scientists and technicians who use very powerful and expensive instrumentation all of which is controlled by programs written for Windows, where's the choice.
Some of you could maybe write control programs for HPLC, FTIR, X-Ray Defraction, GLC and UV-VIs Spectroscopy in linux. And I am the king of the cannibal isles.
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|windows is proper for common users,linux only have benefit for professionals.Cost is not so important now,i think.
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|Windows cheaper than Linux?
Hahahahahahahahaha!!!
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|Yeah because the $80 for a copy of XP is recouped in the time saved.
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|Buying products at Wal*Mart costs more if you are mugged in the parking lot ... doesn't mean you'll be mugged...
I think that Microsoft is betting on disaster...
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|...
"Marking what could
have been a summer-long
hiatus in its 'Get the
Facts' campaign,
Microsoft is re-igniting"
...
It's nice working for Microsoft and getting the
whole summer off !
...
The Computer Rodent
...
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|"It's nice working for Microsoft and getting the
whole summer off !"
Please, please say this means you'll be going back to work soon and not boring us with your presence?
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|Hes the marvin of hitchhikers who loves to moan. He was Ms Marvin ... til he got the push, but hes not bitter ... hes not all twisted inside ... Hes just the Pc Tw@t
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|Windows support professionals are more expensive because they spend money on nice suits and frames for their certifications. Linux support people only spend money on books, they don't even get haircuts. So Linux must be cheaper.
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|FOR THE LOVE OF GOD CAN YOU PLEASE STOP ALL THIS TCO COMPARISON BULLs***?
It's getting old. We've had years and years of Linux sponsored ones claiming Windows costs more, MS sponsored ones saying Linux costs more, and independent ones saying they cost the same.
IT DOESN'T MATTER, we're getting sick of it.
To those analysts, it's really really simple:
Those who want a nice integrated feel with ease of interoperability go Windows. Those who want to be able to build a custom solution and have more control over what they can and can't do go Linux.
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|Thank you. I'm also so friggin sick of the back and forth TCO BS on this - as if it matters which OS your grunts stare at all day. Each has compatible costs and benefits. Friggin dork battles get so old - the main reason I can't stomach slashdot anymore.
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|OK, let's recoup. Microsoft gets an "independant" survey... Hold it! I'm skeptical already. Numbers can be arranged to mean anything. Watching 20 or 30 is not sufficient.
The only thing that can give MS a shred of truth is that MS IT folks can be found everywhere in the enterprise. However, you pay dearly for the systems and licenses. Linux however, is FREE, Linux IT folks will CUSTOMIZE Linux completely. Can't compare that.
These studies are bogus on either side. They're lame. You can't compare the two. Microsoft needs to stop peeing in its pants any time it feels threatened and should spend money on improving its swiss cheese systems instead of wasting it on lame PR.
And to conclude, I agree with you dhjdhj, MAC! Even easier to administer. Duh! And don't get me started on prices as they are becoming more and more affordable. At least quality wise, neck and shoulder above the slew of awful quality and customer service PCs have. And the best enterprises, (Please Microsoft, grow up and stop whinning!) are the ones that use all three systems.
Lastly, was the security maintenance issue with Windows ever mentioned in this?
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|Hey, I found something intelligent in your rant. (Not saying you are unintelligent, just rants tend to be in general.)
"And the best enterprises, are the ones that use all three systems."
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|We invited Microsoft to help us study the problem; and like the guys in the study found that Windows was "cheaper".
After many lunches with our execs, they convinced management that, for example, it would be way too expensive for us to hire consultants to make any of the Linux spreadsheets bug-for-bug-compatable with Excel; and since the CFO knows Excel, it's important we stay with windows across the company.
It's amazing how without rigorous analysis like this we would have missed the hidden cost of making Linux apps bug-for-bug compatable with the Windows ones.
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|For me linux is much cheaper!! WinXP cost over 100€ win2k3 cost ehm.. more than i get in a year :p and linux is for free... but then again, there is free versions of XP/2003 out there too ;Pp
And btw... how in the world could it cost more with something thats free? I mean, pretend that you have 10 win2k3-gurus with 10 2k3 servers, and another side with 10 linux-gurus. The mission is to setup one dns, one dhcp, one ftp, one www and one sql-server. Linux-side choose Ubuntu-server for the mission and win-side.. ye, win2k3 :) Calculate on those licenses for a while, how did it go? did u pay as much for apache as u did for iis? what about mysql vs mssql? or even better, ubuntu vs win2k3?
NOTE: i give a **** about the article above, i just state that "Linux and Windows Costs Equal" is bulls*** :p NOTE again, with my example it cannot be equal :p btw, those engineers get the same payment and it takes them one day to setup everything :p thats more than enough.
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|Hmmm, wonder why nobody thinks about the Mac ---- best of Unix (underlying kernel) coupled with best of breed GUI.
Wonder what TCO for that is?
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|I vaguely recall this Macintosh thing. Isn't that the one with less than 4% market share, and dropping....
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|Macs are even more expensive than PCs.
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|way way more, that's one reason the gradual decline
elitist computing brings with it elitist attitudes with elitist price servicing :)
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|Only twice the cost. But hey, you get to with the special 3%.
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|Well, when you consider the training costs to teach 96% of the staff how to use it, probably pretty high...and I don't know about the Intel-based macs, but a couple years ago I was reading benchmark showing mac servers being the best when a few accesses were being made, but the worst when any sort of load was put on them. (And until recently, Macs were twice the price for half the machine. Most corporations don't care about how pretty the case looks.)
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|According to several well known 3rd party sources (Gartner, ITC, for example), Apple's market share went from 4.4% (2005) to 4.8% (2006), which is about 15% growth rate.
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|What gradual decline? Are you looking at the graphs upside down?
More seriously, I don't understand why you refer to it as "elitist"....many people who barely understand technology or how to switch a computer on love the Mac - hardly an elitist group.
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|Of course I apologize for lumping everyone into the same category but I have to play it by numbers and what I've experienced personally. (also, I was on a mac centric site...and they were talking numbers, they feel mac %'s are down, but can't agree for sure)
When I was younger and before I worked on Macs I was told how they were far superior than pcs...and believed them, until I worked on them. And though I didn't hate them, I just simply realized it's all software.
But comparing pc vs mac users...I could not ever remember any pc enthusiast saying PCs were superior to macs (in some blind wa). And there has never been any pc commercial stating any sort of conspiracy or political regime as in that apple ad with the "soviet" style pc world.
PCs crash, macs crash, both have and can be susceptible to virii and trojans, it's all the same. But for some odd reason it's claimed as not being so, even in light of the facts, and that's odd too. That is simply where I make my claim.
And I can sort of say that with confidence, because the few mac users I know who say it's better...I ask them why. And they can't really give a real reason, other than that simple "cuz" :)
Long response...I tend not to be concise :D
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|They're even better too!
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|Hmmm, I am surrounded by Linux, Windows, and Macs - use all of them in my day to day work (software development) and in various hobbies. Neither my Linux box (left on 24x7) nor my Mac (usually left on for extended periods of time) have ever crashed. Worst case is an app that crashes and "may" have to be killed manually.
Compare that to Windows where not only does it crash more often but the GUI implementation is such that under some circumstances, a misbehaving app can screw up the window manager (or whatever MS calls their desktop, it's not a real window manager), thereby preventing you from doing anything.
Sigh
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|About time to see it!
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|Suppose that Linux and Windows TCO is comparable. The best way to use Linux and cut cost is when
* You have Linux staff, or
* You have a Linux box that serves many customers, like internet services, application hosting. Or
* You have many many servers.
Windows may get advantage in Enterprise networking, and Linux in service providing.
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|Agree with you 100%. Linux costs involve paying the staff to maintain it, that's where Windows can (depending on the circumstances) save money in the long run.
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|lol...I was going to mention the whole TCO thing in your first post...basically...
TCO, not many people will understand this concept...and lo and behold the funny posts eh?
hehe
Sadly though, on the other side of the coin, it's one reason high TCO products are touted as "better", they keep certain people in business.
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|FLoodland and #4 much more stable environment and will not require reboot every week with latest patches.
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|Which distro is that? My Fedora requires reboot after patches.
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|Incorrect. Linux does not have a dynamic kernel!
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|Fedora only suggests a reboot if the kernel is updated. Kernel upgrades are more common in Fedora than for stable enterprise class distros.
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|> whooaaaaa, hold it right there, you want
> me to do what in order to keep my job?
As you see it's all a matter of recruiting the right (both skilled and intelligent) people.
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|So, the problem is that Windows has better support?
It has an easy solution: Just educate the IT staff to support linux and you will have:
1) Cheap servers
2) Free licensing and
3) Motivated loyal IT professionals
A win-win deal to speak clear to your CFO.
Don't believe the "...linux costs to mantain applications is high" blah blah. That's just BS
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|If you look at maintenance in terms of continuously developing a system to support the management of thousands of products instead of in terms of "it broke, someone fix it" then you'll find the costs being on about the same level.
I wouldn't say that IT Staff with the knowledge to use Linux have greater motivation or loyalty over someone with many other operating systems under their belt. I'd go as far as saying that they have the ability to crawl in the information technology world.
I'd rather pay someone who's competent in running rather than walking.
If we're living in a world where "linux" IT professionals are scarce then "...linux costs to maintain applications is high" would be valid. If you're an IT professional in that position, wouldn't you value your worth and charge more?
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|"Just educate the IT staff to support linux and you will have"
whooaaaaa, hold it right there, you want me to do what in order to keep my job?
No thanks, I'll go work for one of the 1000's of other companies in the area that utilize software I've spent years learning, working in, getting certifications for and that I am efficient and proficient in.
Your IT turnover, lost productivity and training costs alone would make the TCO upside down.
Imagine just the the training program costs to completly re-educate a staff of 100 from low level help desk to system engineers and admin's in the basics, not to metion advanced configuration and troubleshooting.
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|I'm not surprised by this at all, I actually would have thought Linux would cost much more to support due to it's complexity. At my company we have Windows, Linux, OpenBSD and OS X servers and whenever we do something to Linux or OpenBSD, it takes the most collaboration of our IT team.
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|YOu don't have a proficient Linux staff.
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|EDIT: deleted. BN server somehow decided to move my post here.
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|agreed. and at my institution we have Windows, AIX and Solaris. In my case, the AIX and Solaris does need me and my team to discuss before start troubleshooting any problems.
lastly, proficient is not everything, experience is what matter.
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|So, hire Linux staff before you use Linux. Do you agree?
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|Then your team doesn't properly understand those operating systems. Stick to those you do, and hire the proper staff to manage them.
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|That's actually a really arrogent and tunnel vision point of view. You know nothing about the organisation, what they do, where they're located, the business environment they exist in, or pretty much anything at all except what was said in the post.
That sort of attitude is one of the most irritating and ugly sides of the "Linux community" in my experience.
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|Precisely. Experience pays. Only this week I interviewed someone who gloated about their "High distinction" scores in "Network Engineering" from the TAFE institution (government run education organisation), and yet when presented with absolute basics of IP addressing and general networking, he was left red faced and promptly removed from my candidate list.
Scores on a test don't count for real experience.
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|Way to push for the adoption of your fave OS, man. :/
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|That is a wonderful generalization about me and my staff. Setting up a Counter-Strike server sure is hard on Linux. You have absolutely no idea what we are doing, what my company does or what we are trying to accomplish. Therefore, I have to assume you are SUPER smart and no everything about Linux, Unix, OpenBSD, Windows and Mac OS X. Send me your resume, I would love to hire you.
You probably aren't smart enough to realize this, but that was sarcasm.
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|Thanks, but I don't really care what you do. Honestly though, I seriously doubt counter strike servers have anything to do with property management but I digress. Was that sarcasm? I suppose it was if you want to call it that.
Yes, I know more than enough Linux, HP-UX, Windows, *OS, Perl, VB, Network, SAN, and whatever else I need to know to be quite valuable in the world.
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|I don't have a fav os.
;-)
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|When did I ever claim to not be arrogant?
Don't care who they are, or what they do. They still need the proper staff to do the job or they will fail.
That's a fact.
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|*OR* properly train your existing staff to be adequate with Linux as you start interviewing persons with real world experience.
Same to be said of any OS.
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|Again this comes from personal experience, and of course my personal opinion.
Cost wise i can somewhat relate. We have guys that only focus on Linux/Unix machines and guys only focus on windows machines. All I can say is we can cut the windows support guys in half and we are ok, we can cut more but that all depends. With the Linux/Unix crew we cant do that, we need all of them. Its just the ammount of attention a Linux/Unix machine requires in a large environment especially where I work.
Windows, somewhat jokingly is like that one infomercial, "You set it, and you forget it." In other words very simple.
With Linux you almost always have to have a crew to support it.
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|I cannot agree with the comment '[windows]You set it, and forget it'.
If you plan a complete infrastructure from scratch (not depending on windows or linux) you have to do the same planning effort on both systems. It doesn't depend on the OS, it depends
on the knowlege of the IT personal.
I'm working on both environments (windows and linux) and I'm faster to setup a complete network environment with all security etc in linux than in windows. And the biggest advantage in linux is that I have NO automatic update which crashes a windows server because of some 'security' updates (a friend of mine has made this expericence with a company with about 5000 employees and 10 windows servers).
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|"If you plan a complete infrastructure from scratch (not depending on windows or linux) you have to do the same planning effort on both systems. It doesn't depend on the OS, it depends
on the knowlege of the IT personal."
Planning is what it's all about, no question. So to clarify my stance--if you plan well, Windows 2003 Server TCO may be cheaper in the long run. If you decide to do what 98% of the new (young) IT people do and fly by the seat of your pants 24/7, then perhaps Unix/Linux is cheaper :)
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|"set it, and you forget it."
for what like 2 months? or are you still running NT?
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|If you plan well and hire the proper staff, implement change management and process any OS will do any job well.
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|I have felt this way about the TCO between these two for quite some time.
There will be many flames in this thread, "sure cause Microsoft bribed them" "sure because linux sux" and "Microsoft sux", but the truth is that there are benefits for Windows and Linux, and drawbacks for both.
In my personal opinion, Windows is overall the better deal for enterprise networking, but that is strictly based on what you use it for and the true answer is determined by who you ask.
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|It all depends on the application. Windows and Linux can both be used as enterprise OSs for specific applications.
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|Interesting - having spent years working in both Windows and Unix environments, it seems to me that Unix enterprise networking blows Windows enterprise networking out of the window (no pun intended).
Perhaps you could provide some examples of enterprise networking that work better in Windows.
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|"Interesting - having spent years working in both Windows and Unix environments, it seems to me that Unix enterprise networking blows Windows enterprise networking out of the window (no pun intended)."
Well, if you've spent years--well, you have experience with Windows 2000 Advanced server and 2003 Server as well as NT 4.0, correct?
With the last two Windows Server Oses, especially 2003, it works more than surprisingly well. It actually subtracts the unnecessary features from XP so that it can focus on server-specific tasks, thereby there are many less points-of-failure with it since, for example, drivers must specifically be written for it.
As someone said in another comment, you can pretty much set it up and forget it, and implementing changes wouldn't be as painful IMO as it would be on a Linux/Unix Server. Can't give specific examples except to say that our Windows 2000/2003 Server network with over 380 Workstations has only one Administrater, while most small Linux networks comprise of at least two Admins. There's the TCO difference.
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|one word. Google. Shows how cost effective it is to maintain a large clump of linux servers compared to windows servers
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|"With the last two Windows Server Oses, ..."
This is a good point, If you learned *nix 20 years ago all your knowlage is still relevent. If you leaned Windows 6 years ago you should be ready to forget all that and learn something else, for the second time in 6 years, if you want to keep up with the Microsoft thrash.
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|If Google ran Windows they would need to staff a new department just to keep track of licenses. Or the BSA will show up with US Marshals. Joke, joke, the BSA probably audits them anyway.
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|To be frankly, windows seems to have made things simple and easy. But they neglected the fact that most of their implementation is always filled with problems there and here...
these kind of problem normally results to reboot of server to solve the issue.. baaahhh!
i've experience one windows 2003 running with simple ASP 3.0 on iis6.. and also a separate vbs script.
both ASP and vbs tend to manipulate the excel file by using excel.application.
initially, we setup the ASP, and it was working fine. there were no additional component service configuration required to run the script. but when we attempt to create another folder with the same code, iis seems to deny the execution of the same ASP which manipulate the Excel file. we have double checked the iis user account, there were no extra setting required for the initial setup, but this new setting seems to require additional setup. so we go ahead and modify the configuration for excel application in the component services, and we found out that our long running vbs can no longer run anymore. this time with permission deny on this side. in the end, we have to solve it using the permission setting under iis for the new folder, and set back all the setting to default setting on the excel application permissions.. and now all is working fine. the problem was, how can a vbs running as administrator, have no permission to create excel application? as in windows, everything is a puzzle. in linux, we can track it down ( provided with the right tools and patient :D ), we can actually find bugs / our mistake of configuration. in windows, we barely can find the fault... but to call m$
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