CIO Today: The TCO of Open Source Jan 7, 2005, 11 :30 UTC (30 Talkback[s]) (8104 reads) (Other stories by Russell Shaw)
"Open source has a reputation for being free, or at least cheap. But when the costs of programming, customization, maintenance and other factors are taken into consideration, enterprises can find that conversion from proprietary platforms to open source offers little or no savings.
"'While open source appears to have a strong advantage in terms of up-front licensing costs, the cost of operations over time needs to be factored in,' says Dana Gardner, senior analyst for application infrastructure and software platforms for the Yankee Group. 'Counting operations, it is not clear open source is any less expensive to maintain over time than Windows...'"
