Posted on 12/03/2002 9:40:52 AM PST by chilepepper
Windows 2000 servers are cheaper to run than Linux ones, sometimes, says an IDC study which was by strange coincidence sponsored by Microsoft. The study will come as welcome relief to Microsoft salespeople who have been parroting the 'cheaper than Linux' line to general disbelief, but whether anyone else will believe it is another matter.
Nor indeed should we take the study at anything like face value. IDC set itself the task of measuring total cost of ownership of the two server operating systems over a five year period, segmenting this into five areas of server operation. Over a period of years one would naturally expect differences in the purchase price of software and hardware to account for a declining proportion of TCO, with support and staffing costs accounting for an increasing proportion. And lo! This indeed is what IDC found.
However, erm, correct us if we're wrong but we were under the impression that obstinate corporate customers who hung onto their Windows servers for a whole five years without upgrading were more or less open source loving commies in the eyes of Redmond. We haven't as yet seen the full study, but suspect software upgrade costs, and the associated cost of new hardware during the period, may not have been entirely factored in to the Windows 2000 server tab. Linux can have similar upgrade cycles if you want it to, but there is really no similar hardware upgrade imperative if you do decide to move up a version.
Aside from that, the study looks maybe a little stacked in other areas. It finds the support and staffing costs for Linux are greater, largely because Linux systems are more difficult to configure, manage and support than Windows ones, this itself being because Windows has more mature, easy to use management tools.
Which from a certain perspective, i.e. a Windows network manager's perspective, is true.Large-scale, properly set up Windows networks with a ton of hardware and GUI management tools all over the shop needn't cost a lot in terms of machine minders, whereas an open source network without these tools will need the requisite number of skilled geeks making incantations over bash prompts. But this is comparing apples and pears, the geeks will serve you better than the deskilled machine minders when something goes badly wrong (which it will). In any event we doubt the smooth-running easily-managed Windows network actually exists anywhere outside of slideware.
The differences in cost IDC identifies are relatively small, and vary depending on the tasks involved. For example, supporting 100 users on a networking server would cost $13,263 for Linux, and $11,787 for Windows; obviously, the 'difference' here could easily be wiped out by a Windows server upgrade, or by the network in question being run by a company with a background in the Unix, rather than the Windows, space.
Windows also comes out better, according to IDC, in file, print and security. The first two are scarcely surprising, given that a chimp can drive them under Windows while under Linux you need a slight understanding of what you're doing, but it's not rocket science, and would be even less so if Microsoft were a little more helpful to the Samba team. And the third, security? IDC seems to be having a crack at conceiving the inconceivable, and we'd just love more detailed evidence.
There is however one area where the study reveals just the teensiest problem for Microsoft's sales people - Linux it finds (confirming the general received wisdom) is cheaper as a web server. Now, given that plugging computers together on a LAN, sharing files and printing is the stone age trivial stuff, while web serving is more in the 'next big thing for businesses' department, do we not foresee an impending catastrophe, given which it is that Windows is allegedly good at? If Microsoft believes this stuff at all, it should surely be deeply worried by this particular bottom line of the study.
For the record, IDC doesn't identify a particularly large gulf between cost here, it's less than 10 per cent. But as a corrective we offer a counter-study prepared earlier this year for IBM by the Robert Francis Group. This put the total cost of a Linux system over three years at less than half that of a Windows equivalent and, significantly, noted "some initial costs [for Linux] were higher at points."
i think a bit of patience is needed with Linux and Open Source: your experience in contributing to Open Source sound pretty dreadful, but the progress of Linux & OSS that past three to five years has been nothing short of spectacular. some interesting project development tools are starting to show up as well (Tinderbox SeaMonkey for example)
my memories of setting up slackware five or six years ago are pretty painful, and i've been writing code and using Unix/Solaris/VMS for twenty seven years.
i believe that some big bets are being placed on OSS right now, but some pretty big players who can keep the OSS kiddies in check, IBM in particular comes to mind. also, RedHat has been successful enough to *really* care about quality and they have added this value to their distribution, which is in fact quite automated even if not quite ready for the untrained.
in any event, it seems to me that the next two or three years are going to be extremely exciting one for computer technology...
FYI--Evolution is not remotely like Lindows or Xandros--it's an application for e-mail and calendaring--much like Lotus Notes or Outlook.
I'm pretty sure that the animal rights people would have a problem with being that cruel to the aligator.
Do you know why companies spent millions of dollars patching decades-old COBOL code to make it "Y2K" compliant instead of rewriting it from scratch with the object-oriented language du jour? Because when you rewrite anything from scratch (be it rewriting a program or re-type-setting a book), the introduction of new unknown errors is inevitable.
UNIX, BSD-UNIX, LINUX, and Windows 200 are all bound by the old programming models created by Kerrigan, Ritchee, and Wirth over 30 years ago. Structured function based operating systems are not going to hack it in the oject oriented world. And C++ is not going to hack it either.
I'm not convinced that we are moving into an object-oriented world, nor am I convinced that object-oriented development is the best way to approach developing a performance-sensitive operating system. Look into articles concerning what happens when object-oriented theory hits real-world projects. The benefits promised by object-oriented theory all-too-often do not materialize in the real world. When the benefits do materialize, it is because the project was developed in conditions that are uncommon, if not unique.
Linux will dominate the desktop when Habitat for Humanity dominates home construction.
If Habitat for Humanity could duplicate their houses as cheaply and easily as Linus Torvalds (etc.) can duplicate Linux, they probably would dominate home construction because, as I pointed out in an earlier threat, theirs were the only homes standing after Hurricane Andrew.
There are development tools for Linux beyond simply GCC (e.g. the Metrowerks CodeWarrior IDE). Then there is the Mono project.
UNIX tools for serious programming (C and C++) suck compared to windows tools. Using Visual Basic and Visual C++ on a project can turn out a finished program in months that would take years in LINUX.
If you are talking web applications or business applications, a nice scripting language would probably clean the clocks of all of the other "serious programming" options you've listed with respect to development speed and testing.
To take down Microsoft the competitor will have to do what GM did. Build an operating system that a windows user can run with zero training.
Most users don't interactwith the operating system. They interact with applications. All that is really needed is to replicate the Windows applications. And developers, both commercial and open, are working on it.
Here in Columbus Ohio there are 5 stores selling used Computers, including the Microcenter Super Store. When they can sell 3 or 4 year old machines that surf the net, do word processing and spreadsheets just fine that tells you lots of companies that are not leasing hardware are not going to upgrade. The majority of desktops may for many uses become an item like the desk it sits on. It will be replaced when it breaks or wears out. Micorsoft would like to get people on annual payment lease deals before customers figure it out.
Correct. Microsoft depends on constant upgrade cycles for funding. Unlike soap, you don't consume an OS when you use it. Unlike books, there is little incentive to keep buying new ones, once they OS you have does what you want. So where does this ultimately leave Microsoft?
Gates will be taken down... but by a clone or a system that appears to be a clone... not an alternative operating system.
An alternative operating system can also appear to be a clone. That's exactly what several Linux projects are attempting to do.
Ahem. Kernighan and Ritchie.
Microsoft is selling shiny objects to gullible PHBs, again.
Programmers write free open source as a way to gain experience, knowledge, and exposure. They use all three to get paying jobs. Once they have the paying job, they stop writing open sourse.
While this generalization may make you comfortable with the choices you've made and ease your uncertainty about the future, it's simply not true. Certainly there are people who have written code, released it under an open source and walked away, but you know very well that projects like Linux, BSD, Gnome, KDE, Apache, etc. count among their numbers long-term developers who are both volunteers and paid by their employers. As much as you would like to characterize open source as the product of garage programmers looking for real jobs, there are more than a few paid professionals from companies like IBM and Sun participating in the development of open source projects.
That is the model that UNIX UNIX programs and Windows are based upon.
The next generation based on the Component object model of C# is an order of magnitide better in both reliabitiy and maintain ability. Microsoft is spending billions on a new operating system while SUN, IBM, SuSe, and Red Hat and the others play with an antique operating system. BSD UNIX still has a character based installation. It is Model T with a crank starter, tyring to compete with a new Chevie. The BSD boys will loudly tell you they are not trying to compete. They act like they are trying to commit suicide but they can't find a sharp programmers pencil to kill themselves with Some of those boys are still playing with Silent 700's. They can't wait for 1980 to get here.
Sun is playing with yesterdays hardware and software. That is why Sun stock has dropped from 60 bucks a share to less than 4 bucks.
MS competitors are suing Microsoft. That says a lot.
No one has done a successful commercial application for LINUX. Only someone as dumb as SUN's management would try to sell an Office Suite it could not give away.
Microsoft is very vulnerable. But not from the UNIX LINUX crowd.
I'm glad you feel that way. Then M$ won't know what hit them.
Back to reality, Micro$oft does not believe what you believe, and are spending a *LOT* of effort to shoot down Linux. It won't work because the great decider, IBM, has chosen Linux, so its future is assured.
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