“It’s indisputable that the price of the Linux operating
system-$0-is right. Although software vendors such as Red Hat Inc.
and Caldera Systems Inc. sell documentation, drivers, support and
media for their versions of Linux, the source code itself is
available at no charge on the Internet, and end users pay no seat
license fees. That near-zero software cost for the operating system
means hefty margin potential for VARs….”
“Linux credibility is a problem, though. “Linux is a really cool
OS, and it can certainly do some things better than NT (and often
on lesser hardware), but it has a way to go before it can really
contend as an enterprise player-and no, it is nowhere close to
being a viable desktop environment for 99.9 percent of the computer
users out there,” says Dennis Hines, manager of networking and
security for ishophere.com, a Nashville, Tenn.-based e-commerce
company.”
“Compared with Linux, Windows 2000 is a vastly more advanced
OS,” Hines explains. “Its intrinsic security architecture and
scalability are years ahead of anything Linux can offer.“