W. McDonald Buck, retired CTO of World Bank, believes we need to take a more honest and frank look at the Cost Analyses it will take to put Linux on the corporate desktop. In Part I of Corporate Desktop Linux – The Hard Truth he says that a business can’t buy a computer without Windows and save money in the transaction.
Retired World Bank CTO on Corp. Desktop Linux Facts, Part I
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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> he says that a business can’t buy a computer without Windows
The only place you can’t buy a computer from without Windows is the likes of Dell, IBM, HP, Best Buy, etc.
There are ‘white box’ shops that would be more than happy to sell you systems without paying the Microsoft tax.
It looks to me, however, like the Microsoft monopoly has such a stranglehold on the tier 1 manufacturers that it is now not possible for a corporate shopper to save money by avoiding Windows unless they are prepared to go outside the first tier (which brings another whole set of buying issues in organizations with strong procurement rules)
Businesses don’t generally buy from white box shops.
My advise is forget the OEMs and build your own computer since there are places that sell kits to build your own desktop PC like tigerdirect, newegg, zipzoomfly, etc… even walmart.com sells barebones boxes without windows, i understand your frustration Mr. Buck…
i am afraid that if anyone wants a top notch desktop PC they are going to have to buy the components and assemble it their self, or if your lucky there is one of those custom shops that build custom boxes for you for a reasonable fee, the closest one to me is over 60 miles away in another city, there is one in the little town i live in but he deals in Intel boards only and since i want an AMD box i gotta go out of town for it…
Exactly.
I can buy a useable new white box machine for about
$300 CDN (~US$230, I think), that includes 256 meg-o-ram,
20 gig hard drive, 2.4 gig celeron, sound, net, etc.
Note that this is less than the list price (according to the article) of $299 for XP.
Dell, HP & IBM are doubtlessly getting extreme discounts by playing silly buggers in hiding the cost of XP, but no amount of cleverness will hide the fact that they have to pay $20 (or $30, or $40…) more for functionally identical hardware (and often the same brand name components) than someone who is selling white box stuff.
Hmmm … which Microsoft tax would that be ?
Do you mean the higher prices charged by so-called “white box” shops per unit sold in order to make up for their exponentially smaller market share?
Or perhaps you mean the tax you pay by having virtually no customer support when having to deal with these same “white box” shops once your computer develops a problem…
No thanks, when I’m managing my 2,000+ desktops at work, I’ll stick with a company like Dell or IBM who understands what the phrases “customer service” and “supply chain management” mean.
Is this really a big surprise? I recall similar arguments about ten years ago. At that point, it was due to how Microsoft sold licenses to these firms. But that was something we learned later. Is the same thing going on now? Who knows. Even if the OEMs wanted to speak out about it they wouldn’t. The risks to their business are simply too high.
Now I know you can buy these “white boxes” without Windows so, arguably, Microsoft isn’t locking everyone out of the market. But to suggest that everyone and every business is going to buy them is absurd. People feel more secure when they buy a brand name, so they are going to look to the IBMs and Dells of the world.
You might want to read what he’s talking about.
He’s talking about corporate volume purchases of computers for businesses. I’d like to see you pitch having a few thousand employees stroll over to newegg’s site and then order/assemble their computers to the current World Bank CTO and see how well that goes over.
This is TCO analysis paper on how much a business can save money by going with linux. So far in his first paper on aquiring a large number of business PCs from a trusted vendor with known support – he hasn’t found an advantage.
60miles away in another city with “mom and pop” support isn’t exactly what a corportation is looking for in vendor hardware support.
I’d actually like to see you trust your bank account to a computer system built by your bank teller with parts from tigerdirect and the latest Ubuntu iso they downloaded yesterday.
Afterall this is what the article is talking about – deloying linux in a business (aka thing that makes people a living and has to keep track of real world data) with data that is actually financially important.
This situation is known for years. Microsoft and computer vendors are acting illegaly, at the cost of the costumers (which means : US !) for sure in my country and probably in yours as well.
And just because I expect a uninformed OSNEWS reader to tell me I’m bluffing, relevant law articles :
C. consom., Art. L. 111-1
C. consom., Art. L. 113-3
C. consom., Art. L. 122-1
C. com., L. 420-2
C. consom., Art. L. 121-35
Windows is famous for it’s security and stability? Machines from name brands don’t break down? Tech support from name brands never gives you the run around or treats you like you’re an idiot?
Not to sound naive, but I built my own amd64 box, and saved alot of money. Gentoo Linux is sitting happily on it with some other BSDs.
What happens with all the Windows based applications, do you just say we don’t need them anylonger?
This is insane, a Corporation is going to have employees ordering PC parts and building them. Lets say if you had to build 2000 computers, that is nuts, not only how many would actually work, defective parts, setup problems, software errors, on and on and on.
Corporations buy from Dell for example because they have support, standards, warranty, and most of all it works.
Final statement, this is why Corporations don’t have ‘white boxes’ or whatever you call them. Because they know it does not work and would lead to many, many expensive failed concepts that have no common sense.
Why not just go to a junk yard and pick up parts and build you a car or a truck. Same concept, it does not work, costs tons of money and it is not reliable.
EOF
If you had taken the time to read the article you would understand that you are offtopic.
Also, in regards to your list of operating systems: It’s a shame you can’t find one that just works.
Thing is, in an organization and/or corporation etc. envonment you usually can _not_ buy hardware parts and put them together yourself. It just is not the way it’s done. You usually don’t keep a machine assembly department who will put together the pieces, because you would shove the spared money into their pockets so wht’s the point. And 99.9% of workers anywhere at any company wouldn’t ever be able to put together a PC, and they wouldn’t ever really want to do it, that’s also for sure.
What I am surprised many times a’month these days, that when we’re talking about home PC assembling, how very very few people are able to put together a computer from separately bought parts. And as I have come to know, this situation is just worse in the U.S. – remember, I’m talking about an average guy, not amateur or professional tech people.
These people have hard time to buy decent pre-assembled _and_ Linux-powered machines. That’s also a fact.
I, for one, will never buy any pre-assembled PC, ever. First, one can fairly easily and quickly put together a perfectly stable high-end machine very much cheaper than any pre-assembled one could find, and all with brand new parts. Second, I can make the PC to suit my needs. I do full rebuild every ~2 years, meanwhile upgrades when needed.
At a company this way is a total no-go. Order, pay, power-up, work. If it sucks, call them, they come, change, they leave. That’s it. If you’re making money, time wasting is not your friend.
Sorry about the off topic, I realized that now.
As to your OS comment, mine “just works” since I wrote a script to handle the painful install. I have the scripts functionality configurable and handling the other archs I run. Gentoo has its qurks (and bad design choices), and I complain about them regularly in the irc/bugzilla, but all and all it’s been a good work horse of an OS. As for the BSDs, I just keep them around for other work.
Ok I shall leave with my off topic comments now.
well, for your 2000 pc site, where you have a corporate license, that license is only an upgrade, you are required to purchase each pc with a pre-existing windows license. you are actually buying 2 licenses for each pc. that microsoft tax.
also, manufacturers had to pay for each pc they built whether it had windows loaded on it or not. that microsoft tax. i belive this one had changed when microsfot was convicted of monopoly practices, but i’m not certain.
Good article, can’t wait for the next one.
For the people who are talking about whitebox pcs. Do you realise that it is the CTO of World Bank that wrote this article?
We struggled with this too in my corporation.. What the benefit of Linux over Winblow$ is that I don’t have to buy new equipment to get a stable PC with an OS that is more modern that 98, ME and 2000, that we are replacing now.. That is where TCO for us makes the most impact.. I am getting an extra 2-3 years out of a PC, and making them MORE reliable on older hardware than if I bought a new PC.. Now granted there are some high end users that this wouldn’t make sense for, but %80 of my users are word, excel, powerpoint drones that we will convert to Star Office, or use Crossover office and keep them with M$ products…
My 2 cents.
Not to sound naive, but I built my own amd64 box, and saved alot of money. Gentoo Linux is sitting happily on it with some other BSDs.
Sorry, but you are naive.
This is a CTO looking to buy a computer (if not thousands) for his company, not some geek with too much spare time on his hands.
<quote>
I’m a Linux devotee. I’m offended by the rigged analyses that Microsoft has purchased in its “Get the Facts” campaign.
</quote>
Well, I’m offended by you would make that statement and then proceed to do exactly what you said offends you.
His MO is just like the World Bank, where they go in to some 3rd world country sounding all cheery and then after the loan becomes delinquent, they have the natural resources raped without regard to environment, health or economy. The strip-mining rapists of the 3rd world, that World Bank.
And the World Bank ex-CTO is really a microsoft FUDster who thinks he can decieve 1st world IT people with the same lame ploy they use on the illiterate 3rd world. Sorry, doesn’t work.
This is an excellent article.
To all you guys saying “just build your own” or “buy whitebox”, you obviously haven’t understood what he’s trying to get at. This is not FUD. You can’t get a discount buying name brand desktop PCs without Windows. That’s somewhat unfortunate, but not critical. Trying to sell a product on price alone is the wrong route anyway.
If we want widespread adoption of Linux, we need to be better than windows, not cheaper.
That said, I think one of the posters on the original story said it best. For servers, the price difference is quite apparent for servers and you do save money going with RHEL instead of Windows if you buy that.
Just wanted to point out this great comment on the original article, from a commenter who pointed out the situation in the server market is much more sane, and gave prices on Dell servers that distinctly favour Linux:
“With Redhat you are buying a service contract, not software. I know of one company that doesn’t understand this and pays RH close to $1M a year and virtually never calls them. For $1M a year they should dress in penguin suits and stand in the parking lot waiting for problems.”
Made me smile
I don’t buy Dell’s excuse, either. I don’t imagine Dell has monkeys sitting in front of every machine off the production line, installing Windows from a nice pristine CD. No. They image the drives. And the only sane way to do _that_ is in advance. Assuming they can make a vaguely reasonable prediction of how many Linux boxes they’re going to sell, imaging X drives with Windows XP for the next week’s sales and (X / 1,000) drives with Linux can’t be significantly more expensive than imaging (X * 1.001) drives with Windows XP. The only added cost is making the image in the first place, which will maybe take five monkeys (this is a big company, always allocate five times as many monkeys as are actually needed; four manager monkeys for each productive monkey) a week (one day production, six days bureaucracy) every six months. Not a significant cost to a Dell-sized monkey machine.
It just shows that they have taken notice or are worried about the upstarts. People said that Microsoft would never displace Apple – they did. That NT would never displace Netware – it did. That no big company would ever develop for or port apps to Linux – they were so wrong. And, many other examples.
In all these cases, there were huge obstacles to be overcome.
All that’s required is determination, ingenuity and a well-conceived plan.
For several years now, you could buy a Linux PC at Walmart or some other retailer. There is nothing to prevent someone from building a business-class PC with Linux or BSD installed and marketing and supporting it. Who says it has to be a beige box?
Considering the broad hardware support for Linux, I’d say that software support is a bigger headache and a hardware company could easily include RHEL with support contracts.
It’s probably easier to do this for a business environment since they tend to insist on identical desktops and the users are usually not able to customize them at all.
I see that the naysayers love to trot out the same old tired arguments.
Here’s a newsflash for you – Linux can no longer be pigeonholed into any one little box. It has shown that it can adapt to just about any computing environment, more than Windows or any other OS ( except possibly NetBSD) to date.
yeah, i guess you are right, i sometimes forget looking at it from the perspective of a company with thousands of cubicles each with a desktop PC…
my bad…
Very few people or businesses want to buy
a PC without windows.
That’s why the big guys don’t offer it.
If there was a big demand, they would offer it.
reality slowly sets in…
Check this site:
http://www.winbook.com/notebooks/v/v_overview.html
WinBook V230 has WinXP pro and costs $1198. WinBook V220 has WinXP Home and costs $1099. Other listed specs are identical unless I missed something.
Standalone versions according to osnews: mostly $150 for Home, $211 for Pro.
Assume that manufacturer gets the same percent discount for both:
211*discount-150*discount=1198-1099
discount=1.6
So build in prices are around $240 and $340
or nobody would be asking for a Linux desktop…
World’s Largest Linux Migration Gets Major Boost
The world’s largest Linux migration is speeding ahead, with the German national railway announcing today it has successfully moved all of its 55,000 Lotus Notes users onto the open-source operating system.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=1817&e=4&u=/pcworl…
sorry, but if you take the time to visit hp’s homepage you will notice that you can select between
-win xp home sp2
-win xp pro
-win xp pro sp2
-suse pro 9
-free dos
sure you have to look at the busines line, not the consumer products.
Any large corporate will have their own I.T. guys handling the OS/App installations on Vendor supplied PC’s. Support is a non issue as if it is a software related problem the internal I.T. guys handle it and if it’s hardware then the box will be shipped back to Dell/IBM/HP or what ever.
The internal I.T. guys will config up 1 computer in a new batch and then mirror the drive onto all the other computers then pump user login data over the network to the new boxes.
This ain’t your basement computer purchase decision. This is hundreds of boxes at a time. Now what is failed to be pointed out is that I.T. guys can use Linux on current boxes and do the same thing at a fraction of the cost involved in upgrading the traditional MS route. All software licsense purchases are going to be corporate not single user which leaves the setting up and customisation to the I.T. depts. Smaller businesses are a different kettle of fish and there is no real difference in purchasing from a vendor or a white box producer support wise. The difference will be in price per box and the vendor like Dell will be more expensive and crapier than the white box eq. For small businesses it is better for them to utilise a local I.T. support consultant who understands their needs and deals with I.T. purchase decisions in consultation with the business owners and provides ongoing support.
Many small businesses are unfortunately deaf to this concept and end up getting burnt by the large vendors who over charge and don’t really give a shit about them.
Built my last box for about $400. Pretty good machine. I’m surprised that a chief technical officer for something as large as the World Bank would be surprised at the MS monopoly. But I guess I shouldn’t be. When I tell people that I have the most secure desktop in this area (fedora core3 with SE Linux) and that I make telephone calls anywhere in the U.S. for free (don’t know anybody anywhere else), that my personal files are protected by strong encryption they just look at me like I am crazy. My boss’s home computer is so infested with trojans and age (registry corrupted Windows 2000) that it is almost unusable now but when I offer to clean it up for him and install Firefox so it won’t happen again he is scared.
I am at a loss for words
If you were the CTO of a large organisation, would you be looking on the internet for the cheapest priced computer, I doubt it. You’d put out a tender for the best supplier. Pricing in this respect would be a very different argument I can assure you!
Yaah world bank is an organisation very connected to the reallity of the world!!
And you think that if, I don’t know, take the example of city of Munich? Or take any big organisation who want to use Linux, do you that Dell will tell them: “Go away we just install Windows!”
Seriously, if you buy 1000 PC, you have the right to install the os of your choice.
And by the way you will have the same warranties that Microsoft offer to his client with Novell, Redhat, Sun, Mandrake or any big Distribution.
Linux is not just for the lonely guy in his garage now, look at the reallity!
not only tender, but before that, hiring some group of consultants, doing external expertise etc etc, which will form about (at least) third of real purchase costs.
To get (surprise! surprise!) recommendation from those experts and consultants (whose are again, same sort of corporate monkies never met anything in real use besides MS), that only thing which can be better than MS products, are even better MS products.
So, choice is between very best and much more better.
Certainly where I come from there is no problem buying white box pc’s in bulk – hundreds, without a windows license – these are made from all intel parts, from a certified intel whateverthey’recalled. I’m not sure what the big deal is. Bulk purchases of white box pc’s are available, without the need for a windows license.
Furthermore, all the people citing that in “the real world”, this guy is right, should stop and think for a minute. When was the last time that a CTO of a big corporation trolled the big PC companies’ websites to get pricing, using their dinky configurators. This guy may be the CTO of the world bank, but he’s indulging in the same dishonesty as the people he accuses. Corporations simply don’t buy that way. Either they’ve got a direct relationship with the company, and account managers etc, who will bend over backwards to make a sale. Alternatively, they have a third party wholesale supplier, who can source wholesale deals, and who puts a margin on the wholesale price. You can specify with or without windows if you want. How that affects the price depends on the deals of the day. Things change from week to week.
In my view his analysis is shallow, and seems to suffer from the same flaws he claims are perpetrated by the pro-linux crowd. Also, FYI we are a predominantly windows shop.
Seems to me that there is a business oportunity here, for a new Michael Dell, focusing on Linux.
Anyway, business support never helped me out.
If it were meant to be from an SMB or home user perspective, but I have to agree with dumbkiwi, who has said pretty much all I was going to say.
I’ve come to a similar conclusion: The prices on computers with or without Windows is about the same. Probably has to do with large quantity discounts that OEM:s recieve. Maybe corporations that buy thousands of computers can haggle for a lower price without Windows. But I don’t think that there would be any significant savings.
The big initial savings can be made on MS Office that can cost almost as much the computer itself! There are excellent free alternatives to use instead, and that can be installed on Windows, Linux or your OS of choice.
The big savings that can be made in the long run: maintenance and keeping the computer for a longer period of time. Is Linux cheaper with this perspective? Maybe. Maybe not. But the main advantage with Linux is freedom: you don’t have to make yourself dependent on a single vendor.
The cost in terms of Windows licensing comes when you have to upgrade, buy extra licenses, look at Client Access Licensing, server licensing and the cost of much of the software on Windows such as Office and the never ending gravy train for anti-virus companies. When you factor in any support costs this adds up to a never ending cycle of spending that I can tell you every business, from small to large, wants to get out of because it is not comparable to anything else a business spends money on. IT is simply perceived as a drain, and nothing that anybody outside of the IT department really wants to invest in. If IT (and software) wants to be perceived as a profession (that’s right everyone, it currently isn’t) then spending levels are going to have to be a whole lot more realistic thatn they currently are.
I just didn’t see the point in that first part of the article to be honest. Wow – Microsoft give discounts and hides the price of Windows to OEMs to make sure that Windows looks inexpensive (and to keep people using it) while clobbering everyone later on. This should really be amalgamated with the next part of this article.
I won’t argue about all the merits of integrated, central management that Windows server has that Linux just lacks. For the sake of comparison, I will assume that both operating systems are equivalent in all regards (sorry Active Directoy), and just make a comment on pricing. Upgrading servers that work is a pain in the ass for businesses. When businesses install a server, they install it in the hopes of running it at least 5 years and usually hope to get 10 years out of it. The common zealot assumption is that just because Windows Server 2003 is released, or Solaris 10, everyone has to jump on it and upgrade to it. That is why the zealot would talk about the upgrade treadmill (another lie they tell themselves to boost the cost of Windows). But this certainly does not happen. Companies suck out the life of the server (and desktops) for all it’s worth and only upgrade when it is necessary (unless the owner likes to waste money). Reinstalling/upgrading the operating system every two years is simply not realistic expectations and the cost of doing that never justify the new features that are now available. But upgrading every two years is exactly what most “free beer” opensource software companies expect out of businesses (some even want you to do it every 6 months). How long is Mandrake supported? How about Fedora? Suse? FreeBSD? Because there is a cost associated to keeping the software running and secure for 7 years, these companies simply can’t. They only support software generally for a maximum of 2 years. Businesses need support on average for 7 years. Software that can’t do that are simply toys. And sadly, the only reliable Linux distributions that do that end up costing more than Windows.
Hint to open source zealots…*honesty*
There is a saying, honesty is the best policy. I like this guy. He is honest and he is not a zealot. Let us do a fair comparison, find where linux fails, try to improve that and the day it is better than windows (technically/marketing) it will succeed.
But if you just come out and say, window is trash or crap or winblows, it only makes you look stupid. Stupid like a moron who didn’t come first in exam and now saying that the person who came first cheated? People only laugh at you because hey you are not first, so stop crying, get your ass in place and work hard to be better.
That is why the zealot would talk about the upgrade treadmill (another lie they tell themselves to boost the cost of Windows).
No, I’m afraid you’re taking the Windows way of doing things and simply transplanting it on to the Linux world. Your logic about how Microsoft supports Windows is also a classic mistake that all silly little MCSEs make.
The distributions that support Linux all generally have at least a five year support plan in place – Suse and Red Hat certainly have.
The 7 year Microsoft support of Windows is also bollocks, and here’s why. Microsoft will say they will support Windows 2003 for 7 years, or .Net 1.1 and VS 2003 for 10 but that isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. All new versions of Microsoft software are designed to run on the latest version and intentionally less QC is done on older versions of Windows or any frameworks Microsoft produces. If you want to run a new piece of software, however long Microsoft supports your version of Windows for, you’ll simply have to upgrade. You won’t get 7 years out of a server, or even 5, which is why many are contemplating upgrading their Windows 2000 servers now and have been for a while. I haven’t even got to the consequences of viruses spreading to a Windows server….
Microsoft, cleverly, knows this, and relies on people like you who don’t. I’m afraid this does happen, and thinking otherwise is just a delusion. I take it Windows is a toy then?
Very few people or businesses want to buy
a PC without windows.
That’s why the big guys don’t offer it.
If there was a big demand, they would offer it.
Actually, IIRC Microsoft offers vouchers from vendors doing certain things. One of them is that if you don’t ship any boxes w/o operating systems you get a dollar off of every Windows license… that is a crapload over a whole year. Ship one OSless Pc and that bonus is gone. That is why DELL shipped http://www.google.ca/search?sourceid=mozclient&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&q=… with FreeDOS. Except if you ship with an operating systems customers will expect you to support despite any disclaimer. Many if more corporations catch onto this “Oh yes, if Bill G. ask these boxen came with ‘Operating System'<wink wink nudge nudge>” we’ll finally get OS-free name brands.
Oh and mom-and-pop shops would suck for quality… ask the people paid $10/hr to work there… they really don’t give a crap. Ram out of one type of RAM? Well shove in another and if it boots send’er!
“The distributions that support Linux all generally have at least a five year support plan in place – Suse and Red Hat certainly have.”
I know that. I even said that. I also know that distributions that do provide support end up costing more than Windows. Simple example:
RedHat Enterprise Server running Oracle for 7 years = $2,000 * 7 + cost of Oracle. Windows Enterprise Server running Oracle for 7 years = $2000 + cost of Oracle. Price difference = about $12,000 cheaper running Windows.
You don’t have to pay the RedHat bill, but then you wont be able to install security fixes or bug patches.
You also have the option of using a “free beer” distro that provides two year support. But don’t expect to get questions answered by Oracle. Also be prepared to take down the server causing major downtime, everytime you upgrade to a newer version. Oh, and let’s hope everything works out ok when you do. And hopefully the centralized backup software you have supports this version you are using.
If you are a medium to large company, all of these vendors will sell you PCs without an OS, or with Linux. Small businesses and individuals have no choice.
Moreover, it’s quite likely that any business with an IT organization probably installs a corporate image of some sort on each box, regardless of whatever might have come on it.
The cost of purchase with a PC for Windows is not the only cost involved. There’s liability (they’ll sue the hell out of you if they catch wind you misplaced your license papers), maintenance (Linux is higher cost if you try to have Windows admins do it, but MUCH lower cost if you have Linux or UNIX admins do it), downtime and upgrade cycles, malware considerations, etc.
To be fair, I think the original author intended to leave those other considerations until later.
“RedHat Enterprise Server running Oracle for 7 years = $2,000 * 7 + cost of Oracle. Windows Enterprise Server running Oracle for 7 years = $2000 + cost of Oracle. Price difference = about $12,000 cheaper running Windows.”
Since when does Microsoft charge for one year and let you use it for seven?
You’re out of your goddamn mind…
How about THIS comparison?
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server – $379 for five users…twenty users…two hundred users…all same price…$379
Windows Server 2003 – two hundred users – $10,000+
Cost of cleaning up viruses and server crashes…priceless…
I think you are out of your mind. Linux support cost like hell. And don’t forget the treadmill of constant OS upgrade which breaks compatibility all the time.
Viruses are a problem in windows, but thats hardly once in a year like blaster. Ofcourse you won’t browse internet on server, so those viruses doesn’t matter.
And you forgot to mention the expert admin requirement which cost 60K per year for Linux
RedHat Enterprise Server running Oracle for 7 years = $2,000 * 7 + cost of Oracle. Windows Enterprise Server running Oracle for 7 years = $2000 + cost of Oracle. Price difference = about $12,000 cheaper running Windows.
Who said anything about running Oracle? I hope you factored in the costs of all those Client Access Licenses for Windows as well, as well as the extra licenses for Exchange for e-mail, SQL Server etc. as well as all the CALs for those as well. I hate to point out the obvious, but with any Linux distribution you get all of that functionality included. For some bizarre reason, you don’t with Windows. Oh wait…..
I notice you didn’t do a comparison with Suse either.
I think you are out of your mind. Linux support cost like hell. And don’t forget the treadmill of constant OS upgrade which breaks compatibility all the time.
Err, no. You leave it the way it is, and you can upgrade for security or functionality reasons. That’s what the support is for. You can actually upgrade components for additional functionality on just about anything you use, unlike anything Microsoft produces. Apart from that there isn’t any constant OS upgrade, as no company upgrades their server on the basis that someone tends to upgrade Debian or Gentoo on a personal server or desktop. Now Windows Upgrade and Service Packs – there’s something that can break things.
Viruses are a problem in windows, but thats hardly once in a year like blaster. Ofcourse you won’t browse internet on server, so those viruses doesn’t matter.
What the hell do you mean – viruses don’t matter to a server?!! Are you really that much of an idiot?
The point is that if a virus gets on your desktops and on your internal network and then spreads to your servers, they are affected in the same way as your desktops – which means serious downtime. Desktops being unavilable is one thing, but to have a server down and compromised internally, running critical systems and data, is an absolute nightmare. It happens all the time.
Even if it was once a year, which it isn’t, that’s too much.
And you forgot to mention the expert admin requirement which cost 60K per year for Linux
And where do you pull that figure from? Linux admins generally do not get paid more than anyone else in most parts of the world, as they are lumped in as the same club as everyone else – as admins.
Even if you did need to pay 60K a year for one or two, it has consistently been proven that you need less Unix/Linux admins than you do for Windows. So compare a theoretical 120K for two against 5 or 6 * 20K or 30K, as well as all the additional costs above and what have you got?
I hear a lot of people coming out and crying ‘Linux zealotry’, but this is just ridiculous.
The 7 year Microsoft support of Windows is also bollocks, and here’s why. Microsoft will say they will support Windows 2003 for 7 years, or .Net 1.1 and VS 2003 for 10 but that isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. All new versions of Microsoft software are designed to run on the latest version and intentionally less QC is done on older versions of Windows or any frameworks Microsoft produces. If you want to run a new piece of software, however long Microsoft supports your version of Windows for, you’ll simply have to upgrade. You won’t get 7 years out of a server, or even 5,
Strange seems to work fine where I’m at. We still have NT 4 servers doing duty, a load of Windows 2000 servers running happily along and 2 windows 2003 servers.
We moved to a new accounting system, .net based which we contracted to have written. 90% of our 300+ workstations are Windows 2000. .NET 1.1 installed on all of them and the system runs great. We even deployed server side with Windows 2000. We use Win2003 in a new department that opened up because our licensing options gave us newer software with the new hardware. The NT 4 systems are mostly there for a few old legacy database systems that may use occasionally for a couple of long standing old accounts and mostly to house the finacial records of the old system. We got a good 8 years out of the NT4 systems before we moved primarily to windows 2000.
You are spreading FUD here and obviously have little to no experience working with MS server deployments or technologies. If you do and the above is how you believe it works then I’d fare to say your IT group is incompetant at best and likely will cost the company money on any OS.
“RedHat Enterprise Server running Oracle for 7 years = $2,000 * 7 + cost of Oracle. Windows Enterprise Server running Oracle for 7 years = $2000 + cost of Oracle. Price difference = about $12,000 cheaper running Windows.
Who said anything about running Oracle? I hope you factored in the costs of all those Client Access Licenses for Windows as well, as well as the extra licenses for Exchange for e-mail, SQL Server etc. as well as all the CALs for those as well. I hate to point out the obvious, but with any Linux distribution you get all of that functionality included. For some bizarre reason, you don’t with Windows. Oh wait…..
I notice you didn’t do a comparison with Suse either.”
If you would stop lying to yourself, you would be able to compare apple’s to apple’s. Now, forget the cost of admins, etc. (generally Windows is cheaper) and let’s just focus on the software costs on the server side. The article already went over why Windows on the desktop is cheaper or just a cheap for companies so we won’t look there. We are strictly looking at the server side and we will compare the cost of the software after 7 years.
1) RedHat Enterprise Linux/SuSE Linux running Oracle verus Microsof Enterprise Server running SQL Server or Oracle.
2) RedHat Enterprise Linux/SuSE Linux running Apache versus Microsoft Web Server running IIS or Apache.
3) RedHat Enterprise Linux/SuSE Linux running any proprietary app (ERP, B2B, CRM, POS, BackUp Software, whatever else) versus Microsoft Server/Enterprise Server running same proprietary app.
4) And apple to apple comparisons.
And please do not bring in the cost of Exchange access licenses versus Linux POP3 access,etc. That is an apple to orange comparison. I’ve setup Windows clients using pop3, imap, and a host of other services that do what Linux does and they cost the same price as they do on Linux (which is free.).
Also people tend to forget that, GAIM, openoffice, mozilla and almost every other opensource app is available for Windows and works just as well. People don’t have to migrate to Linux to use these applications for free.
You are spreading FUD here and obviously have little to no experience working with MS server deployments or technologies. If you do and the above is how you believe it works then I’d fare to say your IT group is incompetant at best and likely will cost the company money on any OS.
I’ll take that as a yes then
. FUD – I like that one.
It depends on what you run on those systems. If you choose to run a current SQL Server (or any Microsoft software), as everyone will choose to do who wants it, you will not get it supported and as such you won’t get anywhere close to 8 years service out of anything. If you have a problem, as many people do who now run things on Windows 2000, the answer is always to upgrade. Other service providers, such as those offering Linux, will fix it.
That’s the point I was making, and I’m afraid nothing of the above has done anything to address that.
If you would stop lying to yourself, you would be able to compare apple’s to apple’s.
I still haven’t seen the cost of Client Access Licenses or anything else factored in. I’m still waiting……
The article already went over why Windows on the desktop is cheaper or just a cheap for companies so we won’t look there.
The article didn’t go over any such thing, certainly not from a total license cost perspective. Try reading it – it went over availability of anything other than Windows pre-installed.
Now, forget the cost of admins, etc. (generally Windows is cheaper)
Why? The questions was asked (not by me) and was answered.
1) RedHat Enterprise Linux/SuSE Linux running Oracle verus Microsof Enterprise Server running SQL Server or Oracle.
Microsoft will not bundle SQL Server, or anything with the equivalent functionality with Windows as any Linux distributor will do with PostgreSQL or MySQL, and promise to support it. Running Oracle is a choice.
And please do not bring in the cost of Exchange access licenses versus Linux POP3 access,etc. That is an apple to orange comparison. I’ve setup Windows clients using pop3, imap, and a host of other services that do what Linux does and they cost the same price as they do on Linux (which is free.).
That equivalent software is not bundled in with Windows as it is with a Linux distribution, nor will it be supported by Microsoft in any way shape or form as it will by Suse, Red Hat or any other Linux vendor.
4) And apple to apple comparisons.
It is apples to apples. The above is a direct functional comparison, so please don’t try and wriggle out of it like that.
There is a saying, honesty is the best policy.
Okay, I agree with that. Too bad you don’t follow that policy yourself and completely misrepresent what he says in that excerpt below.
I like this guy. He is honest and he is not a zealot. Let us do a fair comparison, find where linux fails, try to improve that and the day it is better than windows (technically/marketing) it will succeed.
Have you actually read the article? He does not fault Linux in it, so there’s no question of finding out where Linux fails. The article puts the blame squarely on “tier 1” manufacturers (even IBM) who will not sell Desktop PCs with Linux (or without an OS).
If anything, this means that there needs to be an additional effort to convince the PC makers to offer Linux computers at great volume and better price than their Windows-based ones. It’s not a matter of Linux being better than Windows, but rather of Microsoft still using pressure on some tier 1 manufacturers (or of these manufacturers being unable to overcome their own intertia).
It also means that you deliberately misrepresented the content of the article, right after praising the virtues of honesty. I’ll admit, that’s pretty bold trolling you did just there…
Microsoft EULA:
“YOU AGREE TO BE
BOUND BY THE TERMS OF THIS EULA BY
INSTALLING, COPYING, OR OTHERWISE USING THE
PRODUCT. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE, DO NOT INSTALL
OR USE THE PRODUCT; YOU MAY RETURN IT TO YOUR
PLACE OF PURCHASE FOR A FULL REFUND.”
You CAN go to Best Buy, etc. and get a PC WITHOUT the OS. They are bound by the EULA the same as you and I. Just because they did not read it does not mean they do not have to sell you the computer with Windows already installed. Now, let’s see…that computer is on sale for $299.95. I do not want the OS (XP Pro), so $299.99 (the price for a full, not upgrade, version of XP Pro) subtracted from the sale price equals….Hey! they have to pay me $0.04 to take the computer with me.
“This case is not helped by resorting to the same kind of trickery and distortion of which Microsoft is guilty. I don’t like to see obviously skewed analysis on Linux’s behalf any more than I like to see it on Microsoft’s behalf. No that’s wrong. I have a greater dislike of pro-Linux trickery, because I expect better of us.”
After which he goes on to do precisely that by using the prices advertised on the *consumer* website for Dell, IBM, etc.
This is ridiculous. Corporate customers buying *10* machines don’t buy from the website, let alone customers buying thousands. They ring up and talk to a sales rep.
If you ring up Dell and tell them you want to buy 1000 machines with no OS installed, I’ve no doubt they’ll be more than happy to oblige.
It depends on what you run on those systems. If you choose to run a current SQL Server (or any Microsoft software), as everyone will choose to do who wants it, you will not get it supported and as such you won’t get anywhere close to 8 years service out of anything.
How many companies deploy new installs of SQL Server or Exchange on old hardware with existing OSes and software in place ? I don’t know anyone who does that. You leave your existing systems in use and bring new servers online with new software. You migrate as you need and once you’ve fully moved to the new platform and made sure everything works you take the old systems offline and relegate them to different roles or get rid of them.
We got 8 years out of NT4. No it wasn’t running the latest versions of anything, unless you consider SQL 7 to be the latest. There was no point in upgrading the software on it. It was built to do a task and do it well. Its a server. If its not broke don’t fix it.
If you have a problem, as many people do who now run things on Windows 2000, the answer is always to upgrade. Other service providers, such as those offering Linux, will fix it.
No its not. You get a MS support engineer who contacts you and they work through the problems with you. We’ve had hotfixes delivered to address very specific problems and MS wrote them just for our issue(s).
At some point for all companies the answer will be to upgrade. Thats a fact. Demands in business change and so do the demands of the systems that run the business.
Its no different for Linux.
That’s the point I was making, and I’m afraid nothing of the above has done anything to address that.
Well then read what I just wrote. You have very limited experience with MS in the enterprise if you truly believe that any problem you may have are answered with ‘just upgrade it’.
In this article and the coming up “Part 2”, he just said the price and TCO of windows is lower than Linux, ie Windows is better.
He was a poor ex-CTO, his decision is only based on the finance.
To select a “Right” OS for a organization and/or corporation price is not only factor. The security, existed software, technology, political and culture are important factors.
So that we can find that:
1.Some banks still using OS/2. =>: Existed software, Security.
2.Some EU cities government use Linux: => Culture.
3.Chinese government use Linux. => security, Political
But, I really don’t think a company using Windows, Linux or Unix is because of the above reasons. Same as select a ERP program, that is depend on the CEO and/or CTO. If CEO/CTO not like Windows, the company will changed to his preferred OS.
For the people who are talking about whitebox pcs. Do you know the large volume price of Windows? For > 1000, it will be 50% off.
For the people who are talking about “MS tax”. A corporation not care about the expenditure on the Windows license, since that tiny money actually will go to government’s pocket.
To run a corporation is a lot of difference to a SME, eg. A corporation can pay more for outsource and then said, we save a lot of money!
How many companies deploy new installs of SQL Server or Exchange on old hardware with existing OSes and software in place ? I don’t know anyone who does that.
That’s probably because they can’t
.
Businesses use the existing hardware and software licenses that they have while looking to run any new software on it. There is always inequality in how businesses upgrade and what spare capacity, hardware and licenses they have. Absolutely no one buys a new server simply because they’re running the latest version of SQL Server or anything else and bring it online. They will look to run it on what they have otherwise new servers, server sprawl and spending gets out of hand.
They are not going to bring in completely new servers and software if they have spare capacity on old machines as many, many, many businesses in the world do. Things are just not that simple.
No its not. You get a MS support engineer who contacts you and they work through the problems with you. We’ve had hotfixes delivered to address very specific problems and MS wrote them just for our issue(s)
Wow, really? I’m afraid that doesn’t happen for the vast majority of people. I hope someone factored in the cost of that support in their calculations above, because somehow I don’t think that’s included in the cost of the licenses.
At some point for all companies the answer will be to upgrade. Thats a fact. Demands in business change and so do the demands of the systems that run the business
Thanks. I’ll take that as a yes.
Well then read what I just wrote. You have very limited experience with MS in the enterprise if you truly believe that any problem you may have are answered with ‘just upgrade it’
I’m afraid that you have no understanding just how unequal and uneven IT and software usage is in most organisations in the world.
‘Just upgrade it’ is a term I here from Microsoft and many MCSEs and is enforced by the software itself. It’s certainly not something I’ve advocated, so I don’t know where you got that idea from.
I agree. This CTO belongs to the “old boys network”.
“What the hell do you mean – viruses don’t matter to a server?!! Are you really that much of an idiot?
The point is that if a virus gets on your desktops and on your internal network and then spreads to your servers,…”
From your description of a virus it is obvious that you confuse viruses and worms. The question: who’s the idiot here?
Viruses are not a threat to the server: you need to execute virus infected software on the server to infect server by the virus. If you do- you are not that much of admin.
Worms propagate through networks.
“to have a server down and compromised internally, running critical systems and data, is an absolute nightmare”
Yes, it is. Of course, same is true for UNIX servers: they are not immune to worms. Of course, worm protection starts with admin.
So, the question is, is it possible to properly administer Windows servers to make sure they are not infected by worms, and how hard it is?
How often properly managed Windows servers are getting hit by the worms.
“It happens all the time.”
Oh, really? Well, you probably base it on your personal experience, mine is quite different- but I can’t convince you with mine and you sure only will make me laugh with yours.
How about the third party?
According to verifiable data, 53.8% of the US Fortune 1000 corporations run IIS as a Web server, so they run Windows.
That makes 538 out of 1,000 corporations exposing their Windows server not to the friendly intranet, but to WWW: Wild Wild Web.
That number stays approximately the same since April 2003, which makes me believe these servers run satisfactory in terms of speed and stability.
Now, would you believe that 538 major US corporations will tolerate regular compromises of their Web servers?
“Even if it was once a year … that’s too much.”
Agreed. That’s too much for any sane IT department- 538 IT departments of Fortune 1000 companies must be run by insane people, or just plain idiots.
I am sure they are not, and if there is an idiot somewhere, it is not there.:)
“I hear a lot of people coming out and crying ‘Linux zealotry’, but this is just ridiculous.”
As ridiculous as saying that every Windows server is infected by Internet worms many times each year?
Code Red, Nimda, MyDoom, Blaster, SoBig, Klez…what system did these target again? How many millions of dollars did they cost again? We’re not talking about Web servers here, but servers in general. Maybe you don’t remember Code Red, but I do. I remember the slowdowns affecting almost everyone (even though, thanks to non-Windows servers out there, the Internet didn’t crash).
Malware is a serious problem in the Windows world. Now, you can choose to bury your head in the sand or recognize that it’s a problem. Some people claim that up to 80% of home PCs are infected (most of them relaying spam, or waiting as dormant zombies for the next DDoS attack).
… you folks simply don’t get it. But at least you have an excuse: It’s your poor educations. You don’t/can’t/won’t read.
You’re bashing this guy because he said that Windows TCO is lower than Linux TCO. Did you bother to read his reason for saying so? No, probably not. His reasoning was based on his attempts to buy PCs with Windows/Linux on them — and then comparing the resulting costs. OEMs simply charge more for Linux.
And before you resort to your tired “buh-buh-buh, he should be building his own boxes”, put those lame thoughts back in your head. Lone geeks may do that. But companies don’t do that. They use preferred vendors. They buy their support at the same time. They don’t build their boxes and then have to fix them when they break. If you think otherwise, you’re in fantasyland.
Malware is a serious problem in the Windows world. Now, you can choose to bury your head in the sand or recognize that it’s a problem.
Russian Guy made a pretty good point. Either 538 of the Fortune 1000 companies that utilize IIS as their primary web server are constant targets of malware — and therefore either (1) currently compromised or (2) compromised and repeatedly fixed — or you’re not. Personally, I don’t find it credible that these companies IT departments wouldn’t know about infections or would willfully ignore infection by constantly fixing their IIS installations. So, the only conclusion that I can reach, is that you’re simply exaggerating the problem of malware in the Fortune 1000 server market.
Some people claim that up to 80% of home PCs are infected (most of them relaying spam, or waiting as dormant zombies for the next DDoS attack).
Based on what? Idle speculation? One thumb in the rear and the other in the breeze?
You’re bashing this guy because he said that Windows TCO is lower than Linux TCO. Did you bother to read his reason for saying so? No, probably not. His reasoning was based on his attempts to buy PCs with Windows/Linux on them — and then comparing the resulting costs. OEMs simply charge more for Linux.
The problem is his method is flawed. Corporations don’t jump onto the Dell web site and order from there, they talk to a sales rep to get the machines they want (and a discount). This is even more true when you’re talking about buying machines in any volume.
You’re bashing this guy because he said that Windows TCO is lower than Linux TCO.
That’s not exactly what he said.
Did you bother to read his reason for saying so?
Apparently, you didn’t either, because he didn’t claim that Windows TCO is lower than Linux TCO. Not yet, anyway. (And not on servers, might I add – which is where non-MS TCO studies have favored Linux).
No, probably not. His reasoning was based on his attempts to buy PCs with Windows/Linux on them — and then comparing the resulting costs. OEMs simply charge more for Linux.
That’s not what the article says. Rather, he claims that most of the “tier 1” manufacturers he surveyed only offered Windows, and it ended up costing more to get OS-less PCs. Apart from Dell, they didn’t charge more for Linux, they just didn’t offer it.
The problem is that he only looked at the company’s websites and called a single sales rep. I’m sure if he approached Dell or HP and said: “I want 20,000 PCs with Linux on it – cut me a deal!”, chances he might have reached different conclusions…
So, the only conclusion that I can reach, is that you’re simply exaggerating the problem of malware in the Fortune 1000 server market.
You lack imagination if that’s the only conclusion you can reach. The fact is that you can make a Windows/IIS secure, just like you can make any Internet-connected computer secure. However, sometimes a new threat emerges that exploits a little-known vulnerability. The exploit causes havoc as people gradually find out that there’s a problem and patch their system.
The economic cost of malware is colossal. Accountancy age reports that fore 2004 it was estimated at between 169 and 204 billion dollars.
http://www.accountancyage.com/news/it/1160924
Those Fortune 1000 companies that used Windows were hit, and lost money, but decided to patch their system instead of replacing it because the short-term costs of switching would have been too great. However, the costs due to malware keep increasing each year, so one can question the wisdom in this (most businesses are notoriously focused on short-term expenses).
Based on what? Idle speculation? One thumb in the rear and the other in the breeze?
These were the results of a survey conducted by AOL and the National Cyber Security Alliance. But don’t take my word for it, look it up yourself.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/10/26/pc_petri_dish_city/
May I suggest that, the next time you feel like blindly rushing to Microsoft’s defense, you actually take a few minutes to research this stuff first?
My god, we’re agreeing on this! What is the world coming to!! 😉
(Not only that, but I found that the “and nothing but the truth” kid was actually pretty excited about coLinux in that thread…are you guys playing with my mind again? 🙂
Microsoft’s EULA is associated with MS OS/Software licence i.e. no MS software = no Microsoft EULA.
“How long is Mandrake supported?”
the Corporate Server and Desktop products have 18-month development cycles and 5-year maintenance.
er, malware? On web servers? No. Even *Microsoft* haven’t yet managed to ship a web server so badly configured it could conceivably be affected by malware, in the sense in which that term is usually used. Web servers are affected by automated or manual security compromises (along with DDoS attacks and all that jazz). Malware is a problem for desktops, and no-one *anywhere* would dispute that it’s more of a problem for Microsoft than anyone else, though we can argue the *reasons* till kingdom come.
You don’t consider worms to be malware?
That’s why I put in the qualifier. Technically speaking, yup, they’re malware…but the term is usually used to refer to adware, spyware and trojans that infect badly configured desktop boxes, not worms that hit web server software.