A survey recently released by IDC finds that large networks of Windows servers are cheaper to run and maintain than Linux servers, even taking into account the higher software licensing costs for Windows. The catch? That survey was commissioned by Microsoft. A Reuters article about the study covers mostly how this study indicates a shift in Microsoft’s marketing strategy toward Linux — moving away from criticizing open source toward focusing on Windows’ benefits.The existence and promotion of a survey like this one underscores one of the interesting and problematic aspects of the technology industry and the way it intersects with the media and financial community. Industry analysts like IDC, present their data in a dispassionate and with an objective voice, but are in fact being paid by the companies whose products they tout. The problem lies not with what these analysts purport to be, but how they and their findings are received by an unsophisticated audience.
Analysts like IDC are a helpful supplement to a company’s marketing and public relations departments. They allow a company to study a product’s market, competitors, and position and create a report that can be shared with the media, potential buyers, partners, and investors. The problem is that some of these reporters, investors, and customers do not realize that these studies are not unbiased, and are an extension of the company’s marketing efforts.
So read the study and its conclusions, and use it to draw your own conclusions, taken with a grain of salt.
When converting Hotmail from Unix to Windows, MS said the opposite, didn’t they?
http://www.securityoffice.net/mssecrets/hotmail.html
Less than a month ago I read on /. another survery said the exact opposite but that one focused only on web servers.
TCO is an inherently fuzzy concept that can give you at least as many different answers as you have people doing the measuring (usually “consultants” or “think tanks” who have a keen understanding of where their paychecks come from). I think it’s a losing strategy for Microsoft to take this tack because it can be countered by anecdotal evidence, e.g. Amazon saving piles of money by ditching Solaris for Linux. Besides, server licensing models are much more restrictive for proprietary software. Instead (here’s my free advice to Microsoft
they should emphasize what they offer that’s flat out better than the competition, or unavailable elsewhere, regardless of price.
As MS itself puts it in the memo: “Windows is too complex to understand”. 🙂
What’s more, I don’t think they did count in tools like Webmin or SWAT. They counted expensive geeks doing their thing on a terminal (not that it is that difficult, but it can be daunting). And of course, not one of the ms-customers is in the slightest way being pushed to upgrade once or twice in five years. With all the extra soft- & hardware. Come on please! A little less obvious. Or can’t they be?
When converting Hotmail from Unix to Windows
Hotmail ran on unix, hehe MS is so 2 faced
Hmmm, ommissioned by Microsoft, that could not have anything to do with it. Ofcourse I am being sarcastic.
I’ve heard story after story on the radio that “x” is dangerous, you shouldn’t use “y”, and so on. I often wondered what the news editors, announcers, etc., get paid per year to say what the boss wants them to say (or the boss’s friends, the sponsors?)
When converting Hotmail from Unix to Windows
Hotmail ran on unix, hehe MS is so 2 faced
Hmmm, commissioned by Microsoft, that could not have anything to do with it. Ofcourse I am being sarcastic.
…looking for weaknesses they can fix in the OS. That’s what happened when Microsoft got somebody to say that Linux was a turtle in web server space, as I recall.
I’m really excited to see what happens when they do fix the weaknesses that drive TCO up in these other areas…..
Let’s look at reality, why there are so much webservers running in Linux, and why lots of users change to alterative operating systems based in Linux? All of you out there know that Unix is better than D0S, M$crosoft if it knows that it is better, they in no way say it, I know you know why… So It is normal that W|ndows Servers are better than Linux, because that survey was commissioned by Micro$oft.
Find me an recent article that M$crosoft will move their software (off|ce and others programs) also to Linux…
There are lot of people that say W|ndows is better because they don’t try Linux and that GUIs (KDE for example) out there.
Before say anything about linux try it before.
All people know (go to http://www.netcraft.com) that most servers run in APACHE!!! There are a reason: It is the best WEBSERVER!
60.54% run APACHE
28.89% run Micro$oft Server
this is the reality!
Micro$oft monopoly is in desktop FOR NOW, not in webservers:)
I want to know what’s your opinion about this:)
When converting Hotmail from Unix to Windows, MS said the opposite, didn’t they?
NO they didn’t say that. Go and read the report yourself. That paper does not conclude with “Unix is better”, it lists the advantages and disadvantages of both platforms. Also remember that it is an internal memo, so it will not try to make Windows look like the best overall, it will point out to the specific problems related with moving Hotmail from Unix to Windows. If you have that kind of a task, your focus will not be trying to find the advantages of Windows, but disadvantages and problems so that you can address and solve them.
I don’t know exactly which platform is better, but I prefer Unix, because I know it.
http://www.wininformant.com/Articles/Index.cfm?ArticleID=27467
I’m hearing quite a lot of commentary about web servers. The article states quite clearly that the MS advantage is not in the web server arena, but in File/Print/Directory services.
I am very much inclined to agree with this. Have you ever set up a printer in Win2K?
Start->Run->\uncprinterpath.
Yep, that’s it. Or, in the case of a printer on a server:
Start->Run->\servernameprintersprintername.
That’s all it takes!
File sharing is enabled by default, with the only the admin having ability to access those [kind-of]hidden shares. No setup there, just \server$cwhatever. Of course, adding shares is as simple as right clicking a folder you want to share, and making it available via the sharing dialog.
Active Directory is much more robust than NIS/YP, and contains better management tools built in to the UI for the OS. Right-Click “My Computer”->Manage->Users and Groups, the user management system is always right there. The concept of trees forests and domains allows more flexibility than the NIS/YP Client-SubServer-SuperServer system, allowing for portability of entire domain entities to another organization. All this technology uses Kerborized Windows authentication tickets to identify users internally, adding an extra layer of communications security. No passwd file is a good thing for corporates with sensitive data.
That pretty much sums up my experience.
“All people know (go to http://www.netcraft.com) that most servers run in APACHE!!! There are a reason: It is the best WEBSERVER!
60.54% run APACHE
28.89% run Micro$oft Server
this is the reality!”
Um… No… Apache is free. That’s why most sites run it. And Linux is free. That’s why many sites run it. And these stats include joe blow’s basement DSL web server.
Apache might be the best web server for some cases, but it isn’t always the best. For example, it’s not a speed demon by any stretch of the word. Apache’s single-threaded forking nature makes it pretty slow. (Yes I know Apache 2 is PARTIALLY threaded).
Also, it kind of sucks for e-commerce applications because there are no decent integrated solutions. This is one area where Microsoft is actually far more popular then Apache. Microsoft Commerce Server is the most popular platform for e-commerce.
Hey Eugenia, looks like a bunch of my ” disappeared. Is this an encoding problem?
The Samba open source file and print server outperforms Windows 2000 by a wide margin…
http://www.vnunet.com/News/1131114
QUOTE
Jay White, IT manager at electronics firm BF Group, said that Samba is one of the most useful pieces of server software available for a mixed Windows and Linux environment. “Our Samba server has been online for 394 days so far. The total cost is the hardware plus 30 minutes of my time each year,” he said.
Mark Twells, IT coordinator at a large education facility, said, “We run six Samba servers on a variety of hardware [and] we have around 1,000 users. Configuration is done using text files. Far from getting in the way, these actually simplify things, because I can copy chunks of settings from one system to another. I can’t do that with Windows drag and drop.”
Microsoft declined to comment on the results of the comparative benchmarking.
UNQUOTE
As for day to day management, mounting shares, adding printers etc, there are plenty of easy front ends such as webmin …
http://www.webmin.com/
“No passwd file is a good thing for corporates with sensitive data.”
Well, I assume you are aware that there is no password stored in /etc/passwd on modern versions of UNIX right? As such, this isn’t really an issue anymore. Modern versions of UNIX use shadow passwords which are stored in a file that is only readable by the root user.
And personally, I think UNIX directory shares are a lot easier than Windows shares., at least from an end user point of view. Why? Because the end user only has to know what directory they want to go to. They don’t have to know (or care) whether it is stored on their own computer, a server down the hall, across the city, or on the other side of the world. It all shows up as a normal directory. With Windows, they at least have to know which drive letter it is on, and if it isn’t mapped, then they have to know which actual system it is on.
They don’t have to know (or care) whether it is stored on their own computer, a server down the hall, across the city, or on the other side of the world. It all shows up as a normal directory. With Windows, they at least have to know which drive letter it is on, and if it isn’t mapped, then they have to know which actual system it is on.
Windows also has automounting technology.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/28408.html
It’s amazing what a little funding in the right place will do for your image.
…as long as you don’t have to buy Client-Licenses for your 5000 Client PC’s.
Ralf.
“Windows also has automounting technology.”
I suppose you could set up shortcuts that would simulate the UNIX directory tree where everything including network shares appears under one tree, but that would be messy, error prone, and time consuming. Other then that, I don’t know of any way in Windows to make a network share appear as a local directory. Maybe a way exists and I just don’t know how to do it (I’m primarily a UNIX admin).
Also, of course, in UNIX, the end user doesn’t even need to care what kind of media the resource is on. A CD-ROM drive for example, shows up as a normal directory and can be accessed like a normal directory (it’s read only of course).
They can’t just isolate the severs and personel from the rest of the company, that just doesn’t work. I can buy that it may cost more to get personel fully capable of rolling out and maintaining linux servers, but they forgot to consider that if you are paying more for them this would mean you have generally more educated and/or experienced personel! This alone can be a huge benefit to the company, because they have the knowledge and experience to keep things running more smoothly and efficiently, making the best decisions. I bet they just took the salary of a “just got my MCSE” type for the Microsoft costs, and simply assumed he could do it.
I was over at netcraft checking out various msn sites, and by far the most interesting one I found was msn.espn.go.com which you can find here:
http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph/?host=msn.espn.go.com
shows that msn.espn.go.com swithced from Windows 2000 to FreeBSD towards the beginning of this year.
Also interesting: Max uptime with windows 2000 was 27.37 days and with FreeBSD it has been 146.94 days thus far.
Kool. If msn switched to freebsd, maybe I should too…
Sure, nobody contests that UNIX admins are more educated that Windows admins :-). They always make the best decisions, are smarter and look better. By the way, nobody hires the “just got my MCSE” guy anymore, considering the state of the IT today.
But you’re right, windows is much easier to manage and indeed, admins are cheaper. This is in my opinion the MAJOR advantage of MS over competition.
to a 3-year study from IBM
http://www.ibm.com/linux/RFG-LinuxTCO-vFINAL-Jul2002.pdf
“Sure, nobody contests that UNIX admins are more educated that Windows admins :-). They always make the best decisions, are smarter and look better.”
Heh… I am assuming they are more experience/educated because they are payed more, not because they are unix/linux admins.
Even if they’re knowledge/experience is more rare, companies still will want a more educated or experienced guy if they have to pay more.
You’re allowed to mount drives onto empty NTFS partitions under win2k and winXP (Probably NT as well).
Obviously I meant partitions onto NTFS folders. Dunno where drives onto partitions came from
Interesting, there’s a table on that link to netcraft showing the OS change to FreeBSD, but the webserver remains MS IIS.
Does IIS run on FreeBSD?
We UNIX guys are definitely more attractivem, that’s a well known fact. Basically, I have a hard time keeping the chicks away ;o>
>>>Amazon saving piles of money by ditching Solaris for Linux.
That’s all PR bullshit. They saved only 17 million dollars for a company that is closed to 4 Billion dollars in annual revenue. They probably spent more money on xerox machine toners. They made a profit only on their Christmas quarter last year. And they have been losing money every quarter so far in 2002.
I wouldn’t say that IBM commissioned that TCO study. IBM just created a linux web portal and 99% of what’s posted on their linux portal has no relations with IBM themselves.
Why do people keep saying Linux is better? It may be better in some ways, but after my experiences in MSDOS (2.2 – 6.), TOS, Solaris, Windows(3.1-XP), I’ve got to tell everybody, in a lot of ways relating to the end user Windows has Linux beat hands down. I’ve installed red hat 8.0 on my laptop, and mandrake 9 and Lindows 3 on my desktop, and while installing the operating system was initially easier for Linux, installing anything else is far easier in Windows. At least in Win I can find an icon on the desktop and on the start menu and I can see where the program is installed in Windows. In linux (except for click and run programs in lindows) you have set the path (I thought I had left the DOS console behind), and I still dont know how to get an icon or an entry on the desktop menu. In none of the versions of Linux can I get the CD player to play music (and I have a standard compaq pressario). And few of the programs have put themselves in the directories that their own documentation say, so they’re lost on my hard drive. The only reason I even try is because I’m sick of being tied to proprietary file formats, and expensive software. If I were earning money instead of going back to uni, I wouldn’t even bother, and until Linux gets better in that department, no one else will either.
“Let’s look at reality, why there are so much webservers running in Linux, and why lots of users change to alterative operating systems based in Linux? All of you out there know that Unix is better than D0S, M$crosoft if it knows that it is better, they in no way say it, I know you know why… So It is normal that W|ndows Servers are better than Linux, because that survey was commissioned by Micro$oft.
Find me an recent article that M$crosoft will move their software (off|ce and others programs) also to Linux…
There are lot of people that say W|ndows is better because they don’t try Linux and that GUIs (KDE for example) out there.
Before say anything about linux try it before.
All people know (go to http://www.netcraft.com) that most servers run in APACHE!!! There are a reason: It is the best WEBSERVER!
60.54% run APACHE
28.89% run Micro$oft Server
this is the reality!
Micro$oft monopoly is in desktop FOR NOW, not in webservers:)
I want to know what’s your opinion about this:) “
There is also the awe factor when you enter the room and people say quietly, “thats a UNIX person”. You quietly move over to your desk and start working.
The MSCE’s are badly dressed, sitting at their desk drool’in and click’in whilst you’re typing out a profoundly easy perl script that can automate all their “hard work”, people come pass your desk and see this “funny language” you’re typing in and before you know it, you’re the IT guru for your company.
Why do MSCE’s have the reputation they do? because most have no formal education, and have simply left school, obtained a paper or two, but completely clueless about basic computer fundamentals.
“The MSCE’s … sitting at their desk drool’in and click’in whilst you’re typing out a profoundly easy perl script that can automate all their “hard work”, people come pass your desk and see this “funny language” you’re typing in and before you know it, you’re the IT guru for your company.”
ooooooh… Magic! oooooooh…
http://www.win32scripting.com/Articles/Index.cfm?TopicID=719
Back in my ISP tech support days it was always a laugh to get the MCSEs calling in to get the bosses computer setup to access the internet and save their jobs. No, Im seriously not kidding. I got SEVERAL of those, and I was just one of hundreds of techs taking calls. Those MCSE programs can tell them everything they need to know to set things up, assuming nothing goes wrong that is. Good troubleshooting is something else entirly, and I don’t think MS even acknowledges that their systems fail in those certification programs.
Most of our best fixes were certainly not anything MS would teach, as it would show what hack jobs their OSes really were. At least Linux acknowledges that its a hack job, and doesn’t get in your way to keep you from finding out, and fixing the problem.
“That survey was commissioned by Microsoft.”
What else can I say? This describes everything! :}
Why M$ needs this kind of ‘tests’ and articles?
Why doesn’t prove their rights with the customers statisfaction? 
I can be short, these TCO’s meaning nothing. It’s all predictions! They talk over a period of 5 years for example. hmm win2k is not 5 year old if i’m correct, all prediction. These days a lot of FUD is coming out … odd
I work at an ISP help desk. More than 70% of all problems are caused by customers Windows machines randomly loosing settings, 20% or probles are PEBKAC problems, 8% of problems are telco problems, 1% of problems are Macintosh problems and less than 1% of problems are caused by the us as the ISP. Go figure.
Mac users hardley call, generally trouble free machines.
*nix users never call, they have a clue.
Windows costs business a hell of a lot of money, technicians, AV software, constant hardware upgrades… the list goes on. Ignorance of upper managment causes the infinite loop on MSism to continue.
—
Gonad.
Is it me or did I first hear that Micro$oft was going to fund a study by someone two years ago? How did a five year study fit in two years?
Funny, this study has disapeared from there web site. Searching for it on there site doesn’t come up with the article.
Matthew,
I see from your previuos posts that you really have a MCSE fobia :-). Listen, don’t confuse UNIX and Windows with how people dress, act, their culture etc. because world is not reduced to computers only. You simply assume that MCSE=moron and unix knowledge=5kg brain 🙂 It’s just a job like any other, cool down and get some perspective.
Well…..duh…..windoze has like 97% market share on the desktop…where do you think all the calls would come from.
‘More than 70% of all problems are caused by customers Windows machines randomly loosing settings’
They dont randomly lose the settings….its the end user messing with the settings before they call you.
my2cents