Win2k Cheaper than Linux 1279
An anonymous reader writes "According to this story, Win2k costs an average of 11%-22% total cost of enterprise. The study showed that the initial investment takes up less than 5% of the total cost. Linux did beat Win2k in one category, Web-serving." Man did this thing get submitted a lot.
Absolutely True (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Absolutely True (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Absolutely True (Score:4, Insightful)
When factoring TCO, you must also realize that 500,000 per infraction is a lot to pay if you're caught for software piracy.
Total Cost of Ownership (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh, probably because macs won every other TCO report I've seen
Re:Total Cost of Ownership (Score:5, Insightful)
Sheesh - it was a FIVE YEAR study and Max OS X hasn't been out that long. Oh wait... neither has Windows 2000. In fact, Windows 2000 will not be supported five years after it's release date.
Oh I get it. Windows 2000 doesn't cost anything to support after 5 years, since your forced to upgrade at that time.
No way! My AMIGA won the best TCO everywhere! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Total Cost of Ownership (Score:5, Insightful)
Btw, I have a part time admin job (3 days a week) of 63 Linux machines, and the other days of the week I help out with another 100+ machines (admined by one person full time, who also programs), as well as supporting a number of lower priority machines.
Re:Total Cost of Ownership (Score:4, Interesting)
How about system recovery? eventualy every peice of hardware is going to take a puke. How hard is Win2K or Linux going to be to recover, have enough actualy crashed to even estimate?
My guess is that as Linux penetrates further into the data center, and there is more experience top-to-bottom in the IT staff that Linux's cost will drop further than Win2K's will because linux will self-administer easier.
Doesn't it depend entirely on how to define TCO? (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course its cheaper.... (Score:5, Funny)
2,5 year to go? (Score:5, Informative)
Reference: Here [microsoft.com] we read that Mainstream support for windows 2000 servers will end 31 March 2005 That's only 2 years and 4 months from now. I don't remember seeing a 'use before' date on any linux servers. Do you?
Readers might wish to balance this article with the rest of the story, found here [theregister.co.uk].
+ 10 Karma! (Score:5, Funny)
On another front, you can get well-balanced news stories here [theonion.com].
Re:+ 10 Karma! (Score:4, Insightful)
balanced, he's claiming that the Register article's
bias balances the linked article's bias; i.e. the opposite biases cancel out, leaving an objectively informed reader. At least that's how I understand
that post.
Better Register Story (Score:4, Funny)
Woman jump starts car with cyber-infant [theregister.co.uk].
Re:2,5 year to go? (Score:5, Insightful)
I haven't seen a 'use before' date, but Linux distributions get cut off just the same. I've got a box at home running Redhat 5.2 that's no longer being supported. Here's the errata archive [redhat.com] where they recommend upgrading to a supported product.
While Linux (and open source in general) does have the advantage that someone can always support it, that doesn't mean that someone is supporting it -- especially when the package in question has been superceded by a number of later versions. There's always the option of hiring a trained individual to handle watching bug lists and backporting necessary fixes, but the pricetag on that would make Windows mandatory upgrades cheap in comparison.
Re:2,5 year to go? (Score:5, Insightful)
Given: After a period of time, Microsoft operating systems are no longer supported by Microsoft.
Given: Windows 2000 will no longer be supported by Microsoft in about 2-1/2 years.
Given: The study was for five years.
Since the front end costs are greater for Windows 2000, their study claims to show that, over five years, the backend costs (administration) overcome the frontend savings.
Now, shave off the backend by cutting the case study to half the length: the front end costs become a much more significant portion of the TCO. </obvious>
Draw your own conclusions...
Re:2,5 year to go? (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, I think it's somewhat less of a problem in the Linux world. After all, nobody's charging you for the upgrades. It's still a pain to have to make sure everything works, etc, but at least you can do it for nothing but time.
Re:2,5 year to go? (Score:4, Insightful)
There's always the option of hiring a trained individual to handle watching bug lists and backporting necessary fixes, but the pricetag on that would make Windows mandatory upgrades cheap in comparison.
Or you could just use RHN/up2date and spend $50.
Re:2,5 year to go? (Score:5, Insightful)
While the theory is nice, and I'm sure someone will note that the source is available so you can patch it yourself (which is most certainly not true of Windows), the reality is that outdated Linux systems are harder to find patches for than Windows in some cases. Most serious bugs aren't patchable by even above average programmers -- the time involved in learning the code base so you can figure out where the bug is and fix it is usually huge... hell, most programmers have a hard enough time fixing code they wrote 3 months ago, much less someone else's code!
As a case in point, MS is still providing patches to Win98. Trying to find patches for a Linux system 4 years out of date is a daunting task. No, it's not true in every case. But the majority of cases it is true. It's stuff like this that makes CTOs break out in cold sweats when they think about moving to Linux. You can't simply upgrade to the latest version of library X everytime one comes out -- that kills support because they have to test everything before every upgrade to make sure nothing breaks. But if you don't then you run the serious liability of not being able to patch a security hole several months or years down the line. Yeah, theoretically true for other OS's as well, but very few OS's have the level of constant flux that Linux exhibits.
That said, we're slowly moving to Linux here (Redhat specifically), and I couldn't be happier. AIX sucks. SCO sucks even more. But both have better long term support than Linux has shown thus far.
Re:2,5 year to go? (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course, it would be just like MS to give away licenses to Win2K when it will be unsupported in a couple of years. I doubt anyone will be getting any discounts when they are forced to upgrade at that point. With Their differential pricing, they'll probably try to make up the revenue lost giving away the initial licenses.
Lifespan Issues (Score:4, Insightful)
Part of the cost of maintenance on the Linux platform is surely regular installation of upgrades which are freely available.
By contrast, who keeps a Microsoft product for five years without upgrading it? Especially in a corporate environment? That means that two years down the road, it's time to pay for a new version. . .
Just a thought.
Larsal
Re:Lifespan Issues (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, a corporate environment is more likely to stay with an old operating system than an individual or small business. There are still plenty of companies that are still using NT4 with Novell clients, or even Windows 3.11. Hell, there are still many (inventory, purchasing, etc.) systems that run on mainframe-type unix terminals. Agreed, most companies don't go 5 years without upgrading but there are certainly some that do.
Re:Lifespan Issues (Score:4, Interesting)
Actaully, I'd say that the majority of medium to large corporations don't upgrade their OS any more frequently than 5 years. In a large company, it can take several years to work out a stable config that will work with older machines and servers during the transition, budget for it, and (the kicker) distribute it to all their employees. Most large companies use every other version of windows (many will likely skip XP and wait for Longhorn or whatever comes next, since 2000 is 'good-enough') since they come out too quickly to keep upgrading. Sure, the developers might need custom Win XP (or linux or anything) workstations, but most users will not know the difference between NT, 2000, and XP. If there are any day-to-day problems they have in NT or 2000, they're already used to dealing with them and aren't desperate for a new version on their workstation.
And companies which depend on their mainframe servers for critical business processing will hardly ever change the system. Taking a chance at diabling their entire operation is just not worth a few more features or faster processing, for most business operations.
Re:Lifespan Issues and Licensing 6 (Score:3, Interesting)
I agree. It's entirely unfair to stretch the TCO out over five years without including the cost of *forced* upgrades [microsoft.com]. And what about cost savings [sun.com] by enabling managers to move to other (open source) tools instead of being 'locked in' to the Microsoft world [microsoft.com] ?
Another job well done the IDC advertising department... Slashdot has better editors.
Re:Lifespan Issues and Licensing 6 (Score:4, Interesting)
IBM (Score:5, Informative)
IBM thinks differently in this paper [ibm.com] and so does CyberSource here [cyber.com.au].
As a technologist I'm very sceptical to economic calculations. I believe that they can be twisted in any direction.
There is a principle of uncertanty. Of the three items cost, time and product you can only know one. So if you want to know what product you'll end up with, you can't know the price or time...
Anyway, it is good to point out that Linux systems has problems in the management area. But still, people are working on it.
Re:IBM (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course the Windows apologists will point out that Linux has security holes too and they would be right. I do spend a portion of my time trying to make sure my Linux system remains secure. 9 times out of 10 when the security bulletin comes out, apt-get has already fixed the problem. But you know, if I were running Windows here, would I be spending any less time making sure my system was secure? I don't think so. Perhaps that's the difference in pay between the Windows admin and the UNIX admin.
Sorry if I rambled a bit here. Haven't had my coffee yet.
Re:IBM (Score:5, Insightful)
All too true. I'd like to see the full study this article refers to. It is very easy to manipulate these numbers, and I am sceptical of a few things as well.
For instance they state that downtime represents 23.1% of TCO. When comparing two systems with an (alledged) large difference in reliability/downtime, one would expect the cost of downtime to loom larger for one OS than for the other. Also... Cost of downtime is very hard to estimate and varies a lot between businesses (suppose the corporate webserver goes down: how does this affect a phone company as opposed to, say, Amazon?). If Linux would have a favorable downtime average, one could simply downplay the cost of downtime to fix the numbers.
Likewise for staff cost. Staff cost is very hard to estimate as well, and even looking at existing companies won't help: they'll all have different needs and will staff accordingly. A company using Linux might need much more staff to run their servers than another company using Windows... at first glance. But perhaps the first company is in a business where downtime stop everything, and has plenty of expensive experts to quickly cope with any calamity. The second company might figure that a system availability of 85% is fine, since people can get on for a day or two without server access.
Most TCO figures by themselves are meaningless since many of the parameters are business-specific. You may find that in a particular business, Windows is a cheaper and better solution than Linux, and in other businesses it will be the other way around. Lastly... when a OS vendor starts waving such figures at you, I suggest the Dogbert approach: wave your paw back at them and say "bah".
a company i worked for called MS once... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:a company i worked for called MS once... (Score:5, Funny)
Well, when factoring support into TCO, don forget to include this study. [bmug.org]
ot but.. (Score:5, Interesting)
one thing to not about Free software is that the support base from the community is huge. as a result when you are having problems there are many more resources available for you online than there are for proprietary software. also people developing Free software are more likely to admit bugs and problems with their system than those who close their source to the public.
my own personal expirences have shown that developers in the linux community are more likely to respond to you personally than those from say microsoft. take for example a problem i was having with a network card. i was getting strange errors in syslog and i wasnt sure what they ment. i poked around on the net and i couldnt figure out what was wrong. in a last ditch effort i emailed donald becker [tux.org]. perhaps you've heard of him, he writes most of the linux network interface drivers and he came up with a little clustering concept called beowulf.
well i emailed him with the problem i was having, and do you know what he did? he didn't ask me for money, or a credit card number, or a beer. he emailed me source code for a diagnostic program. i emailed the results back. this continued for a couple hours and eventually we determined that the nic was bad. oh did i mention that he responded to my initial query within an hour?
now i ask you, if i emailed support@microsoft.com and asked them for help with my nic do you think the guy who wrote the network card drivers for windows would respond to me personally within an hour to work out my problem for free? this is the difference between support costs in windows and linux. you might not appreciate them, but i do.
Google (Score:4, Interesting)
and you will see taht IDC has a history of tooting the MS horn.
Re:Google (Score:3, Insightful)
It was "Windows 2000 vs. Linux".
Not "Windows 2000 vs. Unix-like Operating Systems." Not "Windows 2000 vs. Solaris vs. AIX vs. Linux." Just "vs. Linux". Why? Surely there are more choices than Windows 2000 and Linux for all your server needs.
I would think that a research company would want to compare TCOs from a wide range of options to increase the total value of the study. However, this reeks of a targeted result based on an agenda to me.
Mike
Comment (Score:5, Funny)
"It just sounds strange that this article claims a five years study using Windows 2000. As of today, this study should have began by Dec. 1997 ! That means getting Windows 2000 two years in advance. "
So they must using a SWAG (Scientific Wild Ass Guess) to come up with it TCO figures.
Obvious questions... (Score:4, Interesting)
Insert standard Mark Twain "statistics" comment here.
The problem is... (Score:3, Insightful)
You have a previously win32 shop where everyone know how to support win32. You either train or hire someone to support Linux. That is where you incurr the cost. From there, you have one person supporting 1-5 boxes (typically in test deployments) and so your divisor is low, with a high numerator.
What these studies don't do is assume that you have the same size install base of Linux as for Win32. Everyone knows that Linux is more reliable (and having worked in IT as a professional for 7 years, (and still working in it now) that is not heresay) so the same person can support more boxen.
Another problem is that the people who train rather than hire have the problem of unfamiliarity. Just like with any other job, it takes newbies longer to do anything.
Finally, the last reason is because it takes more to be a good Unix admin, and their salaries reflect that fact. But fortuneately, the stability of the boxes more than make up for that fact.
We will never have a proper TCO study unless conversion is 100% with proper support staff. The closest thing would be the migration of Hotmail to Win32. But we all know how that turned out...
How convinient (Score:3, Interesting)
"Microsoft is celebrating the results of a study..." Hehee. It was about time they found one study to prove how Windows 2000 costs less over a five year time span.
Never mind that Windows 2000 hasn't been around even close to that long.
Never mind that Microsoft stops supporting it in year 2005. Wonder how a six year time span would have looked like...
She could at least have linked to the study itself...
Re:How convinient (Score:3, Interesting)
As for stupid arguments, I'd lean more towards that as a characterization of a TCO study using projected data.
But what is each server doing? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why?
There are less mission-critical systems running on NT, so there are less DBAs, less backup, etc. The print server sits in the corner and gets a 3-finger salute if it plays up, so it's cheap to run. The mission-critical boxes, running web servers, databases, etc can't go down, so we have administrators to look after them.
IMNSHO - if we normalized for what each box is doing, Linux and Unix are cheaper to run.
Alan.
Re:But what is each server doing? (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with normalizing the servers is that your non-technical businesspeople are retarded from learning the interdependencies of the systems and the business. The costs, risks, and benefits of any system directly emanate from the impact they have on the operation of the business. Your MBA doesn't really know *any* details about the operation of either the business or the systems or the people that execute those details.
This kind of reporting is just upper-executive grandstanding, trying to reinforce the justification for their astronomical salaries. Look at the numbers. They are designed specifically to make it seem like the proponents of such work are making decisions with consequences that dwarf their salaries. The inferences are drawn from overgeneralized facts, and the conclusions ignore the significance of overlooked factors.
If you do not see the scientific explanation of "how to repeat this study in your situation" it is BULLSHIT!. YMMV: here, it holds just as true as anywhere else! Now what are we paying these jokers for?
typical MS tactic (Score:4, Insightful)
When you take into account third party apps that are necessary to get a true useable, functional and secure system from MS, plus the training and high licensing fees, this introductory TCO comes out to BS. Novell or Mac, and Unix hardly ever needed 3rd party products to get them to do what you want. And regardless of the system, books, training, salary - are all going to cost. I mean, do you really want Proxy server as your firewall?
No surprise (Score:5, Funny)
Does MS agree? (Score:3, Insightful)
Complete waste of bits (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Complete waste of bits (Score:3)
The study compared the five-year TCO of Windows 2000 server environments with Linux server environments from multiple Linux vendors at some 100 different North American companies.
"The TCO metrics are described in terms of five-year costs for 100 users. IDC's TCO methodology
You can pretty much bet that Microsoft defined a limited space for the study and let IDC produce a white paper, knowing in advance it would be fodder for press releases. It mostly comes down to management tools for some tasks in which Mickeysoft has GUI tools.
Of course, defining 5 year TCO for an operating system that will not be supported for 5 years is a little silly...
Downtime costs (Score:5, Informative)
We have linux servers at work that have downtime every 6 months for servicing, and then only for a handful of hours. Other than that, they don't come down at all. I fail to see how less than 1 day downtime/year (planned, at that) can contribute 23% of the TCO of the system.
2 sysadms at ~$70k/yr = $140k/yr. $0 for licensing. That would make downtime cost roughly $32k/day (23% of 140k, assuming 24 hrs downtime/yr). If you house something critical, like your CRM system, on 1 machine, and it goes down, I could see that. Then again, that would be your own damn fault for having 0 backup/redundancy.
There's a lot about that article that doesn't add up, and not just the 5 year study on Win 2000...
Re: Downtime costs (Score:3, Interesting)
Cost is not everything (Score:4, Insightful)
I am really sick of reading all this rubbish about the cost comparison between linux/unix and windows.For the sort of work that i do which is scientific based, the applications that we need are not available under windows. So it is impossible to run a cost difference between linux and windows, linux is basically priceless. And I am sure that there are some people that it works
the other way for as well.
In order to decide what operating system to use, one should first know what one wants to do with their computer and then decide what operating system to use. Cost should not be the deciding factor (although an important one) when choosing an operating system. If an operating system does not do what one needs it to do, then no matter how inexpensive it is, it is just wasted money.
As for training costs while using computers. It has got to the point now where the basic operation of all operating systems are very much the same. Using a browser in linux is almost identical to using it under windows. So it is impossible to say that training costs are substantially different for any operating system.
Now things will fly about violently (Score:5, Insightful)
But I cannot see how they can support the argument except that at the moment, there are simply more Windows administrators and techs out there than there are Linux administrators and techs. What's more, I have encountered people who proudly make statements like "Microsoft Only" as if it were some status symbol or major accomplishment and who won't even go NEAR a machine running anything else as if it were diseased and might infect his mind. (Brings to mind certain flavors of Christianity)
But as there are more Microsoft-supporting professionals and so many of them are still out of work, it stands to reason that the TCO is low over 5 years... except one thing-- will Windows2000 still be supported in 5 years or will their license terms change again encouraging [requiring] upgrades to their latest OS? So yes, MS people are more available and will accept lower pay. Linux people are still more rare and generally expect more pay because we know a bit more... and usually know MS in addition to other OS's pretty well.
You still get what you pay for, for the most part. But the TCO figure is a very subjective thing... and has anyone asked if this was also yet another MS supported study?
The problem with Linux (Score:5, Funny)
I think the new MS licensing agreement was actually a RPG system that fell into the wrong hands.
For a good headache... [microsoft.com]
Lower cost partially a factor of scale... (Score:5, Insightful)
But everyone else is doing the same thing, so you have to lower prices and they lower theirs. (This is overall mind you, not pinned down to any two support services) Microsoft products are also quite easy to manage on the whole. Especially since Win2K came rolling in, plus with NT4SP6a you shouldn't have too many major server problems either.
Everywhere you go you can find all sorts of Microsoft camp product support. Once you learn one Microsoft product you are well on your way to knowing another.
Many corporate level packages also come on Microsoft (ERP, etc.) so that gets added into the mix as well - if you want a Linux solution you are really going to have to take the long way around for a lot of this stuff.
Linux is doing quite well, but entry into the Linux world is like running into a brick wall for many. There are far fewer Linux users around and the system is totally different from what most people are used to. There is a staggering amount of things to learn when taking on Linux, kernel recompiles, following the chains of dependancies, all of this takes time to learn and internalize. Most Microsoft type products are a matter of getting the latest service packs.
So there are fewer Linux users and fewer people overall familiar with Linux. The cost of finding someone to help you is going to be higher. Plus, I would argue there is *far* more to learn so you're going to pay the high priced people even more.
This presents a massive total cost barrier for those who would seek to save licensing money by switching to Linux. It is far easier to pay out to a software company for support and pay cheaper mainstream consultants and get things done than it is to start entering this whole new world of OSS. And you'll have to keep paying out more money to expensive consultants and employees to keep up-to-date, even though the initial costs are cheaper.
Then there's all of the little things that Linux can't quite do yet. Incompatibilities with the mainstream software products, pieces of software that just aren't available or which just aren't up to snuff when compared to the MS world. Add these in as indirect costs - even if you get the money to start up with Linux these little niggling issues will make management wonder why they bothered. Finance is not going to be happy without running Excel, the VP is going to be annoyed by not being able to access his IE only stock market site.
On the flip side, if you happen to have employees that known their Linux and know it well, there are definitely benefits to be had. If you want to add a new web server, W2K Adv Server is going to cost you more than the hardware and your Linux-savy employee can probably get an Apache server running nice and easy.
The problem is Linux is just not quite popular enough yet so these gifted people are hard to come by. Trying to insert Linux into a corporate world of Windows raised folk via consultants is going to mean huge dollars - basic stuff that everyone at least sort of knows how to do in Windows may require more consultant hours for instructional purposes.
But, even as the article mentions there are places were Linux is making itself cost effective and useful - like webserving. These tasks should be Linux's thin-end-of-the-wedge. Slowly get Linux in there for these tasks, and then maybe it can take over one more job, then another. Sys Admins can slowly learn more about it and become more experienced. Eventually that TCO is going to balance towards Linux.
There is a long ways to go though - and screaming that all MS users are idiots and they just don't realize how far superior Linux is, is counter-productive. The technical snobbery that often goes on (knee jerk MS bashing, even near-religious fervour found within variations on Linux, newbie bashing, etc.) helps nothing. The rest of the world will just ignore Linux even more and continue on doing their business using MS and closed-source products that they are comfortable with and *that work* as often as not. They *really and truly* don't care what software they use as long as it works, and as long as it is cost-effective to use it. Most business need to use computers, but what computers they use are irrelevant to them. They just need to, well, take care of business.
Find ways that Linux helps them to that in a cost-effective and friendly way and I'm sure more and more business will bite.
TCO studies are worthless (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd like to see this study with 10 windows vs. 10 linux servers, or 100 vs. 100
Hmmm.. (Score:4, Insightful)
"Well sure any retard can run Windows so of course it is cheaper TCO"
And that is exactly how MS will market their products. Wanna web server? No problem, sure linux/freebsd is free, but the staff to support it will end up costing you more in the long run.
You folks act like being easy to use is a _bad_ thing. While the rest of the world thinks it's a good thing.
You call people who install a win2k server for their small business idiots and they're idiots for not mastering unix. But maybe they don't time to learn all that is needed, because they have a business to run, and it is simply cheaper(in the long run) to run a Win2k server than a linux one.
Think about it.
Sometimes it seems like slashdot folks sits in their geek tower and spews insults at all the morons for using MS. Without ever knowing what's really going on in the real world.
BTW, I use linux/freebsd and love them. But i also love computers in general.
Talking with some of my friends who run their own business they are really nervous about going to linux yet they are interested.
I can't give them support and they are afraid that supports costs will be too high, and Jim down the hall is pretty good with Windows so we will just let him do the administration.
Sorry for the rant I know everyone on slashdot is not this way.
And in the next 4 days (Score:3, Funny)
We shall see this story again, but with a new title...
Taking bets now who will post the duplicate...
1) Hermos,
2) Michael
3) Taco
4) Taco's Wife (pertending to be Taco)
This is humbug (Score:5, Insightful)
It might be worthwhile noting that real studies, which we can look at, unlike this one, and which aren't backed by MS, show that Linux has a lower TCO:
http://www.cyber.com.au/cyber/about/linux_vs_wi
http://www-1.ibm.com/linux/RFG-LinuxTCO-vFINAL-
Yup, Sure Guys (Score:5, Funny)
The site www.crn.com is running Microsoft-IIS/5.0 on unknown.
What is the TCO of replacing that smoldering hunk in the corner, guys?
Random thoughts contradict convention. (Score:5, Interesting)
Another issue is the "difficulty" of administrering Linux, as compared to Windows. While, there are some valid arguements to support this hypothesis, there are also some important details that are seemingly ignored. That is, the difficulty is in fact due to unfamiliarity. Windows admins are unfamiliar with Linux and it is therefore more difficult for them to administer it. But, were these Windows admins born knowing how to administer Windows? Is Windows truely so simple that they can do it without any prior knowledge?
No! The fact is that the Windows admins have had specific training in administering Windows. They have gone to classes, MCSE Boot Camps, seminars all about how to manage Windows. They also have a bookshelf FULL of Windows administration books that they have studied. Now, after all that, Windows is familiar and relatively easy for them to administer. I challenge anyone who makes the difficulty claim to build a bookshelf of equal size to their Windows one. If these people read just as many books on Linux as they have on Windows Administration, they would not find it any more difficult than Windows. This would likely be true even without any Linux classes or Linux Boot Camps.
It has been proven by a legion of CNEs who find Novell no more difficult, in many cases far easier to manage than Windows. Yet The same Windows admins will say that Netware is MUCH harder to manage than Windows.
Also, on the subject of training etc. These TCO reports always factor in the expense of Linux training. However, they do not seem to factor in the cost of Windows training. Let's not forget that the books and the classes and the MCSE boot camps cost a lot of money. Even if that money has already been spent, it must be factored into the TCO. These MCSEs were not born knowing how to administer Windows 2000. It costed thousands of dollars each to raise this generation of MCSEs. In most cases these training courses were paid for by the companies. How can they be simply ignored by the TCO studies? Are these MCSEs going to live forever, or are they going to be replaced by a new generation that will have to aslo be trained at a cost of thousands per head?
Maybe they're right! (Score:3, Funny)
To install Linux I need the following:
- buy a new computer
- order a Cable net connection to download the CD
- buy a CD burner to burn the CD
With Windows I just need to:
- dial 1-800-555-DELL (free)
- give credit card details
- receive delivery of new PC with Windows installed
So really buying Windows saves me money as I don't need the net connection or the burner!
Ok ok, so that was bad. But it's only 8:21 and I'm half asleep.
I say it again... (Score:3, Funny)
In other news from Microsoft... (Score:5, Interesting)
"War is Peace."
"Ignorance is Strength."
You know Microsoft is running scared if it has the nerve to run TCO studies against OSS such as Linux. I wonder if the study took into account the high incidence of crippling worms for Microsoft server OSs? Further, certain things are so much better on Linux/BSD systems such as programs not polluting the OS image and no registry to be a point of failure and source of problems.
It is also a big plus for the Unix variants that they can be easily installed and administered over the network.
Windows Fileservers with lower TCO than Linux???? (Score:5, Funny)
Well for nearly 11 years I have been in the fileserver world. I touched lots of file servers. From old ancient LANtastic and Netware 2.15, going through most Novell flavours up to 5.0. For 11 years I worked with, administered, tweaked and crunched so many different file servers that I don't remember all of them. Lots of Novell flavours, OS/2, NFS on Solaris and Linux. I worked also with Windows "solutions", from WfW up to Windows2000 Server. From all these I sincerly prefer Netware. Netware is far better and manageable than any other file server system. Naturally as Novell did it specially for file servers. However there is a problem with Novell. Its prices are prohibitive for many customers. But, if your work highly depends in file server services, surely the TCO is far lower than everyone else.
Among all the systems I used, the most crappy, cumbersome, crash-proned, time consuming and nervestraining was M$ crap. It came up into hanging a whole local network, just because M$ thought it could play at will with TCP/IP stack. But there are tons of stories about the crap. Let's just pick the most recent.
In April this year, I met a medium-sized Compaq server in one highly important organisation. Compaq's dealer sweeted a lot to have that lovely machine there. And sweeted even more to have it working. The thing worked, naturally, on Windows2000 Server. I was asked to tweak the crap so that several problems were gone. And the problems were: workstations loosing connection with the server, Apps frequently hanging up, file transfer working slowly (in a 100mbits network it looked much like 10mbits), and a episodic events with the machine crashing.
After some administration we came up to the conclusion that the machine was going into sure doom. The DNS was crashing every day, WINS and SMB were giving wrong packets into the network, the file system was getting wrong data, user accounts were not freed, CPU never lowered behind 30% and lots of many other problems. Besides we found that, everyday, 30 minutes of workday was lost on backing up data (it was a damn important server) as no one could work while backup was going on.
Well, we created a backup server, curiously on Linux, but with the objective to reinstall Windows2000 on the main server. We lost ONE week trying to do it. As we discovered, the original installer had also huge problems with that machine. The machine was simply unable to work stable with Windows2000.
Considering the pros and cons I decided to use my old weapon The Penguin Dancing Samba, against the huge oposition of many people. However the situation was Hell in Flames and there should be a fast solution. So the bosses agreed the change.
Well I had a whole day of headaches to install it on Compaq's RAID. Also I had lots of trouble creating a secure, stable and automatised environment. In the whole, it took me 2-3 weeks to do all the work.
Today, nearly half-year later, the admin approaches the server 1-2 times in the week. Most work is log checking and some rare tweaks in the configuration (mostly adding users), the machine carries several early warning scripts in case something goes wrong. Backup is completely automatic. With the exception of one single user (some mystic problem), everyone works without hangups, crashes or lost connections. The system lives perfectly in its 100mbps network and the problem of slow connections is forgotten. Besides, the average load of this machine is just 3% and it now carries also a MySQL server that is frequently used and which, in the future, may substitute many file server tasks.
Is this the the higher TCO they talk about?
dangerous stories (Score:3, Funny)
"Animal Protein Healthier than Vegetable Protein" as posted on vegetarians.net
"Peaceful Dialog Goes Farther than Violent Conflict" as posted on alqaeda.gov
"Censorship Attempts Actually Lead to Greater Mass Appeal of Target Sites" as posted on scientology.org
"My Uncle was an Monkey" as posted on creationism.com
don't delay! visit now!
They forgot to factor in legal fees. (Score:5, Interesting)
We just couldn't produce EULAs for 13 out of over 600 products. Their lawyers also wanted $6000 for the MSDN copies we had. These guys don't seem to even understand Microsoft licensing and appear to be trying to squeeze you for every cent. I had to fax the MSDN user agreement stating that MSDN CDs could be freely distributed within the company. It did not seem to matter to the law firm that we could produce the CD covers for the other products. No EULA, no credit. It cost the company $13,000 to settle. The lawyers got 2/3rds of that for their "work". The remaining third went for purchasing software which I feel we already owned.
I felt scammed and violated. This ticked me off so I looked for alternatives. I discovered FreeBSD. I installed SAMBA and had the same fuctionality as a Windows Server without the risk. I had to buy 2 Samba books to figure it out. I had to reinstall FreeBSD multiple times until I figured out how to do it. I can do it now in my sleep. It is not that FreeBSD is harder, it was just unfamiliar.
If you think this is an isolated incident, it is not. Audits happen everyday. Sometimes, the target really deserves the attention, sometimes it is just Microsoft biting a hand that feeds them. Sometimes, Microsoft's lawyers go over board and put the squeeze on a non profit or school and then people squak at Microsoft. Then there are a number of small companies that, unwittingly, find themselves in a bind.
There are alternatives to some of the Microsoft software. I suggest to everyone that will listen to use the alternatives first.
It's irrelevant anyway... (Score:4, Interesting)
The problem I see here is that most of these Linux vs. Windows TCO studies hinge on the idea that you are replacing a Windows 2000 desktops with a full-fledged Linux desktops, and that's the wrong way to do it.
I'd like to see a unbalanced TCO review of what the City of Largo, Florida has done [kde.org]. Basically, they've got 800 very cheap thin clients (230 concurrent) running X-Windows applications (KDE, etc.) off of a couple big-ass terminal servers. Very similar to the Linux Terminal Server Project [ltsp.org], and very cool.
There are so many businesses paying $200 for Win 2K Pro and $350 for MS Office just so their employees can send email and dabble in Word or Excel. It's insane. They could be saving $550 per machine in software costs alone! Not considering the fact that the thin client hardware costs much, much less than the average desktop. And there's essentially zero administration costs on the clients. Let's see a TCO comparison on that.
I'm starting to get off-topic, but I'm excited about the project so what the hell. I'm currently doing a little in-house pilot of the same thing at my employer. I've customized the KNOPPIX [knoppix.org] bootable ISOs to basically be X-Windows thin clients. You just pop the CD in a machine, reboot, and you get a KDM login box for our terminal server. Very, very cool. Even free server licenses [theregister.co.uk] from Microsoft couldn't persuade me to drop this project.
Win2k amazingly stable (Score:3, Interesting)
What (almost) no one is saying (Score:5, Informative)
At least at eWeek [eweek.com], someone noticed this [eweek.com]:
"Study Finds Windows Cheaper Than Linux (continued)
"Many drivers of cost need to be uncovered in such an examination and evaluation, and the 'risk/return' trade-offs of Linux versus Windows may not be as obvious as they appear at first glance," they said.
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The fact that Microsoft paid for the research is likely to be used as a weapon against the findings by some in the Linux community and will also elevate the debate about how valid calculations of total cost of ownership are for any given comparison.
A Microsoft spokesman confirmed to eWEEK that the firm had completely sponsored the White Paper but said that IDC had controlled the methodology, data and findings. IDC analyst Al Gillen agreed, telling eWEEK that the firm undertook a lot of custom research for individual companies and customers."
And Galli also goes into detail about the methodology, so you can have fun picking that apart.
Hey idiots, it's a *survey* (Score:4, Interesting)
Time travel? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you read the article a bit more closly and check the comments for referance, you'll notive the article says that this study was done over a 5 year period of time. Windows 2000 wasn't out 5 years ago making this rather impossible and thus pretty hard to believe. And I can imagine that starting with Linux 5 years ago and using that till now probably would cost more than it would to start now and carry forward 5 uears because so much progress has been made. Were upgrades allowed? This article is very light on the details. Would a service pack be allowed then? Wouldn't this make Linux better because for free, you get better and better upgrades. Win 2000 only gives you a few services paks, unless you upgrade to XP (ha!)
So in the end I am really confused at how this is even possible and sort of able to believe part of it because of the severe age-ness of it. But really. Come on, we need way more detail before I'll actually believe it.
This kind of study is pointless (Score:4, Insightful)
Consider the source (Score:4, Informative)
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2126953,00
The IDC study was sponsored by Microsoft (Score:4, Funny)
Re:5 year study (Score:5, Insightful)
I also wonder how rough Windows 2000 was in 1997! Could it be that these figures are made up!?
TWW
Re:I don't see how thats possible (Score:5, Informative)
Considering all the licenses for W2k where I work cost less than one of our tech support guys' salary (and we have several of those guys) the TCO mostly depends on incidental costs from running linux or windows (ie/ if windows requires one competent admin at $60k CAD and linux requires twice as many, which has the lower TCO? But then factor in how much time those admin's are required to patch the servers and it may change - as you can see, it's not a simple thing to calculate!)
I'm no expert on TCO (i'm a programmer/analyst, not a CTO) but you know so little you really shouldn't even be posting on this topic. Shut up and read what some real admins have to say and maybe we'll all learn something
Re:I don't see how thats possible (Score:5, Insightful)
Read more at InfoWorld [infoworld.com].
How does Linux require more care & feeding? I don't understand, my experience has been the exact opposite. Whenever I patch a Linux box it continues to function properly, similiar maintainence on a W2K server (with a subsequent reboot) invariably leaves me with a new problem. BTW, patches to W2K servers are far more frequent and require longer download times than any Linux patches -- even when a new kernel is required Linux is still faster.
I think Giga has the right perspective here, if you don't know what you're doing of _course_ it's going to require more care & feeding. I'm eager to read this report, there is another MS sponsored study coming out 1Q2003 that should be equally interesting....
Re:I don't see how thats possible (Score:5, Insightful)
Depends on what your server is doing, doesn't it? (Score:3, Insightful)
Database servers require far less daily change control than File/Print servers. Even less when you consider it's the DBA doing changes, not the server admin.
What if you have one NT admin for every 40 NT servers, but only have one Unix admin for every 4 Unix servers? Isn't that a nonsensical comparison, when the NT boxes are 1U Compaq rack-mounts, but the Unix boxes are HP Superdomes?
And besides, when people talk about administrative functions they are thinking enterprise level. Not your dorm room.
Re:I don't see how thats possible (Score:3, Informative)
Open Business License:
Re:I don't see how thats possible (Score:3, Insightful)
HERE'S WHERE THEY CAN COOK THE NUMBERS: if they say one-admin-per-10-machines, and MS admins are so much cheaper than Unix/Linux admins, then Windows wins. Of course, typically an admin can support many more boxes using *ix than Windows, so the higher cost of the *ix admin is spread out more, so *ix wins (or at least breaks even) vs. Windows.
Lies, damn lies, and statistics?
Re:I don't see how thats possible (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Well duh (Score:4, Insightful)
Now theres something to curse Bill Gates for, Gee he makes it so easy to use.
Ease of use should be a goal of EVERY software design.
The real problem is that Windows is easy because it defaluts to the lowest level of security. If you want to try to make it secure it becomes much harder.
If your software is better because fewer people are smart enough to use it, you have accomplished nothing.
Promote Linux because of it's real strengths, not because being able to use it makes you feel smarter than someone else.
Re:Well duh (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft's offerings were never especially "easy to use".
Is it "easy" to remember wether your burner is E: F: or G: ? Or was that a network share? Or did that change after I put in a harddrive?
Call me crazy, but I feel much better having /dev/hdxy and mountpoints than that mess.
Is it "easy" that you have to install numerous add-on programs to make Windows usable? My Linux distribution came with an Office suite, ICQ, a browser that doesn't suck, image manipulation software and much, much more.
Is is "easy" to edit undocumented and strangely named registry keys? I'll rather be able to make a backup of a config-file and then make changes guided by instructions *IN* the file, not buried inside a 2000-page doorstopper. Of course, usually you will use the GUI tools to change settings, but they don't cover everything, neither in Windows, nor in KDE/Linux.
Is it "easy" to remember when to double-click and when to single-click? For beginners it's harder than it sounds. They will ask why they don't have to double-click icons in toolbars, but do have to double click icons on the desktop, why they have to double-click directories but not links in Explorer. KDE/Linux is A LOT more consistent here. A lot.
Face it, guys: Windows is not that "easy to use" at all. It's just that people have got accostumized with it's problems and think that they are normal.
And BTW: Windows did not build Microsoft's empire. DOS did. And DOS was the most unfriendly OS in existence.
There are only two reasons why DOS/Windows is so widespread: Because it comes with the computer and because of available software
That's it. No other explanations necessary. KDE/Linux beats Windows in every other aspect, including ease of use for true beginners.
Re:Well duh (Score:4, Insightful)
Am I the only one who actually thinks the 'unix way' is better? Mount things where they make sense in terms of how your data is partitioned? My second hd in my unix server, which is typically newer, larger drives, is
So don't call bullshit just 'cause you can remember if E or F are your cdwriter or reader. All if means is if I come to your machine, i have to sit there and figure it out by doing directory listings.
At least by doing a mount, or simply going to
Re:Well duh (Score:3, Insightful)
All I am saying is that for the newbie, Windows is the easy way to go. I started out on DOS, went to OS/2, then to 98, 2000, and I now run FreeBSD. However, I would have had one hell of a time going in reverse
Re:Well duh (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, then my apps need help. A couple of years ago, when I still used Windows for serious tasks, I had to reinstall half a dozen apps because the drive letters changed after a hard-drive installation.
And I need also help, because I have more important things to do than to remember drive letters on all the machines I administer.
Right, and it is easy for beginners to remember how to chmod, sh, and rm without totally fucking things up. I see, I forgot how second nature the command line is to newbies.
Beginners don't need to know that. Even you should know that by now. But it's very nice to be able to send a command line for copy-pasting via email, so yes, the CLI (alongside the GUI) is also great for supporting beginners.
Yea, you are right, the start button, the My Computer, the Control Panel, all very confusing and counter-intuitive. KDE is such a god-send.
I know that you are desperately trying to be ironic here, but yes: The "Control Panel" in Windows is just a directory with apps randomly thrown in, while the KDE-control-center is organized tree-like, which makes it much easier to find what you are looking for.
Re:Well duh (Score:3, Interesting)
People always tell me about how Linux / UNIX / BSD is so much more difficult to install, administer, update, use, etc. - the problem is, they're talking from a Windows administrator (MCSE) point of view. My typical response to these people has always been along the lines of "Would you want an auto mechanic working on your brain, or a brain surgeon working on your car?"
Before people jump all over me for drawing paralells between the human brain and an internal combustion engine; don't, because I'm not. {smile} Linux and Windows are like night and day in almost every regard, except that they both install on 'computers' of varying architectures.
Long and short of it, companies who hire 'IT Professionals' or people with paper certs of varying degrees are going to have no luck in getting them to administer a UNIX-based network, it's completely obvious. Now, I'm trained and experienced on both Linux/BSD environments and Windows NT/2k environments, so someone like me would be a good candidate (hint, hint all you employers out there! ;) ), whereas many people I've worked with over the years who can barely get past a Mandrake/RedHat/Corel/etc.-Ized KDE desktop and are barely aware that such thing as a "shell" or "prompt" even exists would not be, because they run Windows networks in their houses and have no experience outside of the GUI. (Many of them don't even seem to hail from the DOS days, which IMHO is really a strike against them because they're not likely to have any experience in script-automating repetitive maintainance tasks).
Hiring a competent team of *NIX administrators will, in the long run, save a company mega amounts of money, and I'd be willing to stake my livelihood on that. Task automation, machine hardening, strict user access controls, testbed update servers all lead up to an environment that can be controlled very easily by a limited number of staff each with only a single terminal to their name, and mass critical updates can be handled with great ease through the many, many powerful tools offered in a typical UNIX environment.
Re:Well duh (Score:4, Insightful)
The first comparison was, while still off the mark, more apt: driving an automatic is easier than driving a stick, and Windows 2000 is easier to set up, administer, and use than Linux.
Re:Well duh (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, it did take me about 6 months to learn how to parallel park smoothly. But - once I had learned, it was in fact much easier, because the clutch gives you an added dimension of control as you slip into a tight parking space. I got to the point where I could park the manual in a space 6" (15 cm) longer than the car. No one with an automatic trans could match that.
My experience with Windows products pretty much parallels (ha ha) this: easy to learn. Hard to administer.
sPh
Re:Well duh (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Well duh (Score:3)
And backing up the registry in windows consists of clicking on windows backup then clicking on the box that says system state.
The truth is pretty mundane. Linux and Windows each have their advantages. When you promote one at the expence of the truth, you're no longer a believer you're a zealot.
Re:Well duh (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Actually (Score:5, Insightful)
Dunno, my experience is a lot different, and I've seen both large Unix and large Windows environments.
Without any fancy tools, administering a large number of Unixy boxes is easy, whereas administering a large number of Windows boxes is hellish.
With fancy tools (which are available for both environments - see Tivoli) you can set things up so that operators can do just about anything as long as nothing breaks. When things go wrong you end up having to revert to the standard admin. tools anyway. Unix is fixable, Windows a nightmare.
Re:Well duh (Score:3, Interesting)
I thought its funny that somehow downtime favors windwos when on a unix box it takes less than two seconds to resart a service and you dont have to reboot after installing an application..
BTW I do drive a manual ;)
Re:Well duh (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, according to my experience, that's wrong - and wrong in all 3 aspects.
Set-up: Win2K is easy to set-up, but so is any modern Linux distribution. I don't see an advantage for neither. Well, maybe a small advantage for Linux because you don't have to install a virus scanner.
Administration: Linux is easer to mantain because it has both GUI-tools and CLI-tools. So for quick-and-dirty administration, you use the GUI-tools, but for automated tasks you use the CLI-tools in a script. Win2K has some CLI-commands, but the basic CLI-tools like grep/awk/sed etc. are missing, so it's not nearly as useful. Also Linux can be easily administered from anywhere and from any OS through SSH. And I didn't even start to talk about the flood of patches and security problems you will have to handle on Windows...
Re:Linux is basically hard. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Linux is basically hard. (Score:3)
I have been in shos where there are 1.5 window admin FTE's to support 5 friggen servers a terminal an exchange, a domain controller, a file server, and an application server. In that same department we had 3.5 FTE's to support over 50 *NIX servers (and the *NIX servers were hit far more than the windows servers).
Re:Support costs (Score:4, Insightful)
I love when a TCO study comes out and people read and article (not reading the TCO itself) and claim victory, the fact is you have to treat one hundred servers differently than you do 5 servers. A TCO is not scale at a linear rate.
Re:CRN is a one sided company.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I think they underestimated the downtime cost (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyhow, I worked a later shift, and got to monitor in the evenings. Every evening, without fail, I watched each and every machine in that HA cluster get rebooted =). "Scheduled Maintainance" I imagine.
Don't get me wrong though, this isn't an MS bash. I'm and MCP, RHCE, etc, and use both Windows 2000 on the server and desktop, as well as Linux on the server and desktop. Each has their place.
Maybe when the server hosting this report isnt getting
Re:I think they underestimated the downtime cost (Score:3, Informative)
Why do all the Wintrolls always assume that Viruses, Troyans and downtime can happen to everybode except themselves?
Re:Who paid for this? (Score:3, Interesting)
If I recall correctly, it was NT 4 vs Novell 4. The study came out three years ago. Amusing thing was they disabled several features on the Novell server which were on by default and JUST happen to be necessary for optimized performance. Microsoft had optimized NT4 (things like tcp/ip window size were doubled for example). Things which were not defaults mind you.
The end result? NT wins by a landslide. Never mind that they had to screw the results by messing with the server settings. Basically crippling the Novell server.
I would be VERY surprised if Microsoft EVER did anything that didn't require tampering to get their desired result.
Oh and BTW, 5 year study with win2k? How many of you guys know anyone running win2k that long?
Thought so.