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Windows Cheaper Than Linux??? NOT! |
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 According to a CNET news aticle, a Microsoft-commissioned study has found that developing with Windows can actually be cheaper than developing with Linux. Giga Research conducted the study for the Redmond behemoth and found that "companies could save up to 28 percent by developing certain programs with Windows instead of Linux". Now this is a very specific study: Giga compared creating a Web portal on Microsoft .NET versus creating one using J2EE (Java 2 enterprise Edition) on Unix/Linux. Plus Giga "polled just 12 companies, seven of which were running Windows and five of which were running Linux" (although, to be fair, Giga analysts claim that it would be hard to look in-depth at many more companies than this).
A TechCentral story digs deeper and finds that Giga Research (referred to in their article as Forrester, as Giga is owned by Forrester Research) says that "the main difference in cost was not due to price of the basic software, but rather the price of developing the software, including labour costs."
The entire report should be released later today so we'll get more facts then - but as it stands now, it just seems to be a very poor attempt to stem the flood of companies going with cheaper alternatives (and yes Linux folks - Macs are cheaper alternatives as well!). I wonder if the research firm takes into account all of the license fees for Windows XP, the .NET prices, and fees for various OTHER programs that would be needed for everyday tasks related or unrelated to making a Web portal, such as the Office suite (gotta have Word and Excel, right?), graphics manipulation programs (Photoshop), and basic web site editing tools (Dreamweaver/GoLive)? Not to mention all the money involved in upkeep of Microsoft systems, security problems, virus updates/patches, etc., etc.
Granted, on the Linux side of things you would have to train people to use the interface, command-line and Java, but conversely you probably take at least as much time and money training people to use Microsoft's proprietary .NET system.
Something that doesn't seem to be mentioned is that, if you plan on making a Web portal, getting a Mac with OS X and learning PHP/MySQL would probably be the cheapest, quickest, and most efficient route. A Linux box would be fine too, if you KNOW Linux, but putting someone on a Mac and having them learn only a few terminal commands is much easier than throwing them on a Linux box and having them learn how to configure almost everything. But that's just me thinking logically again - I'll try not to do that so much!
Anyhow, on a related note, we've found that Giga plans to spend the money by taking the rest of September off, kicking back on a beach with a Corona, and surfing wirelessly on their newly bought PowerBooks via Airport Extreme. |
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September 9 2003, 9:43 AM EDT, by
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