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You might have a point.... except that Apache is far more popular than IIS and yet IIS is the one routinely attacked.

Yes, your complaint would apply if the entire world was considering switching from Microsoft to Linux. But when I advise my boss about the comparitive costs of using MS or of Linux, I would be foolish to refuse to include costs related to viruses simply because if in a mythical world where people used Linux more than MS then in that mysthical world the virus cost would be lower for Microsoft.

As a busineman, I must live in the real world and base my costs on reality, not your dream world. In reality, currently, Linux has lower virus related costs and I there MUST include the cost to deal with such problems when calculating the lifetime cost of software.

I am not following your argument, since windows has a higher market share than FOSS solutions it is exempt from malware removal costs? I think the point of the article is that while CSS vendors tout that FOSS solutions are not 'free' in terms of TCO, they neglect this cost that affects them more heavily than the completion.

I don't think the reason behind them having the higher cost (higher market share) is relevant. It is a cost, and they have a disproportionately large percent of it, admittedly for a quite valid reason.

To claim that Window's insecurities aren't part of the true cost of Windows is genuinely dishonest. If you run Windows, and you DO NOT invest in security measures, you are a complete and utter fool. If you run Windows and you invest in inadequate security measures, then you are a mere run of the mill fool.

Any mission critical computer with sensitive information on it has to have expensive security software installed, and it must be supervised and monitored frequently. It is EXPENSIVE to keep a Windows machine "secure".

Only the basest of MS fanbois will say the same about *nix. Granted, only an idiot would set up a *nix machine without setting up a firewall, permissions, and other accepted security measures. But, an idiot can indeed manage to set a box up, and to run it for extended periods of time without problem, because *nix has a lot of security BUILT INTO IT. (Well, as long as our idiot doesn't run as root all the time - nothing can save an idiot from himself if he disregards ALL security measures.)

I absolutely hate this argument. It assumes such a simplicity, that the only consideration that people pick for coding a virus is marketshare of the target. Of course it's one consideration, but not the only. It,. more importantly, seems to want to wash Microsoft's hands of the problem, meaning nothing will get fixed. There are a lot of things MS can do to help the situation (and in their defense they have done some) but saying "it's because they own the desktop, nothing to see here, move along" doesn't help anyone. Including you, when your net is down because some Conficker DoS.

The problem with Microsoft is just how damn easy it is to write a virus, at least in the old days. Microsoft had a system (Windows + Explorer + Outlook) which:

• made the default action (doubleclick) depend on extension
• made the default actions for executable to execute
• made the extension hidden by default
• extended this behavior from a local, somewhat safer environment (the desktop) and pushed on to email, which is totally untrusted.

This is the essence of all VB email viruses. This bad design had absolutely nothing to do with marketshare, just made the impact much more widespread.

Also, they allowed HTML email to hit activeX, which means an untrackable email can execute code just by you opening the mail. It's the Goodtimes virus, but for real.

An analogy would be that "cars are complicated now, with computers and stuff, and people need to be expected to know all that tech stuff to operate safely, so we can let them explode or catch on fire if people are not paying attention 100% of the time, because it's really their fault if the car blows up when you cross the yellow line"

Again, simplicity in argument. YES stuff is complicated, but there are a lot of things you can tie down by default. MS is driven by checkbox marketing, the more features the better. This blows up when people have a financial incentive to exploit those features.

The question is not "Is Linux inherently as cheap as Microsoft". No. The question is, if we include all costs, including virus and other malware related costs, will Microsoft cost more than Linux.

Just as Microsoft is correct that when considering the real cost of 'free software', you have to include costs such as training, you ALSO have to consider the costs incurred due to malware.

Maybe it's a strength that Linux is used less. That results in a lower cost of ownership overall for organizations "right now". In the far future, this could change obviously, but nothing suggests that this cost will be larger than that of Microsoft implementations, not by any margin, not any time soon.

So, as fundamentally correct as your point may be, the story "beats" you because it points out that Closed Source is misrepresenting a lower TCO by not accounting for security issues with the entire solution.

Close source solution offers "skip over" the windows virus/malware problem, Open Source has a clear answer to it now, and likely in the future. Large contracts should be made evaluating these things thoroughly, and include a real assessment of the validity of these offers, and not just take Joe I.T. Contractor's word for it.

That would come out of a different Cost Center which requires pre-approval. The emergency CC is funded for..you know..emergencies and gets funded On The Fly when it is affecting the bottom line. You know what they say "It's easier to ask forgiveness than permission"

This is a good point that I hoped someone would make. What is not explained in the article is that "Windows" isn't exactly the cause of the problem, but "Windows XP." If systems were maintained and upgraded per Microsoft's recommendations, Conficker would not have been anywhere near as big a problem. Say what you will about Windows Vista, if Manchester had upgraded their systems to Vista on the client side (or at the very least, not allowed users to run XP under Admin credentials), Conficker would never have been able to install itself.

I'm a big promoter of Open Source, but I work in a Microsoft shop where we still have all our desktops standardized on WindowsXP, but we never allow standard users to run as Admin, and we never had any problem with Conficker.

Migrating to Open Source would help a lot, but Manchester just needs better IT support (or more likely, better IT management) all the way around.

The problem is that for every penny they contributed in direct labor costs to clean up, there's probably at least as much wasted in employee downtime while services are unavailable.

If it wasn't for the fact that it was preventing staff from getting their work done, I doubt anyone would have spent $2 million to clean up Conficker.

I didn't RTFA, but it sounds like their total cost includes both the direct cleanup cost, and some of the indirect cost of paying people to be unproductive during the cleanup.

You've done your part!