ENT News: The Long Run: Does Windows or Linux Cost More?

“As corporate belt-tightening continues, many IT managers are
taking second and third looks at open-source code, which offers
low-cost or no-cost licensing terms. Linux is now being taken very
seriously as a server operating system, even at large Windows
shops. A survey of almost 800 IT sites conducted by ENT earlier
this year finds that two out of five enterprise Windows shops also
run Linux in some capacity. The Linux sites in the survey have an
average of 625 servers in their organizations, and close to half
have IT budgets exceeding a million dollars a year.

“While no one argues with the fact that the initial price of
Linux is far lower than Windows server software, the picture gets
murkier when looking at long-term costs over a three to five-year
period. Analysts’ total cost of ownership estimates vary widely for
the two platforms. A study conducted by IDC and funded by
Microsoft, for example, finds that across most server deployments
over a five-year period, Linux runs up to 20 percent higher than
Windows 2000 Server. A similar study released by Robert Frances
Group (RFG) found dramatically different results, with Windows
server costs more than double those of Linux over a three-year
period…”

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