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It's a WASH: Linux vs MS TCO is about the SAME (according to some studies)

I came across this interesting article today about companies that are migrating from Unix to Linux or Microsoft are tending to choose Microsoft over Linux because the TCO is lower.

Read here to find out what the studies showed: http://www.betanews.com/article/Study_Linux_and_Windows_Costs_Equal/1159218430

This ties into a similar conversation I had with a colleague about a project being proposed for replacing Unix servers, and the curiousity of what advantages they had for wanting to migrate them to Linux. Was it the hope to reduce costs? Did they have the staff who could support it? Were these things being taken into account?

This can quickly lead to the question of whether TCO is something that matters as much to decision makers...but that is a discussion to have another day...

It is interesting to go down the path of measuring the impacts to the ecosystem that is the infrastructure when you make sweeping assumptions to make decisions. Most often, capturing the impacts into hard numbers is tricky. If you want to get some perspective  on that, visit my esteemed colleague Lewis Curtis' blog site  forhis thoughts about that.

 

 

Published Thursday, September 28, 2006 5:27 PM by beth.patton

Comments

Friday, September 29, 2006 12:39 AM by timelord

# re: It's a WASH: Linux vs MS TCO is about the SAME (according to some studies)

The problem in measuring and comparing TCO numbers is a lot like ROI - unless one has an accurate baseline and “all else is held equal”, it is impossible to compare and/or truly measure. The validity of either measure is called into question anytime a variable changes.  My thinking is this – as the environment (costs, company size, business pressures, technology, etc.) changes, the baseline becomes less valid, sometimes completely invalid.  Sure one can try to “compensate” or “correct” for it, but many of these variables change things in hidden, immeasurable ways.  For example, if the company has a hot new product that comes out during the conversion and more resources (servers, laptops, whatever) are needed faster, more labor is need to keep up, increasing the cost per server or whatever as compared to doing it at the usual pace.  (As an aside - the ROI on the new sales tool as measured by increase in sales is also now invalid as the product mix changed and one cannot attribute the increase in sales to the tool.  Or perhaps the tool made the sales easier and it wasn’t the new product at all…)

All that said, CEOs, CIOs, steering committees, and the like will buy into whatever they want to believe and those that drove the decision will always find ways to prove they were right.

May the “which is less costly” debate live on!
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