Linux vs Windows Tco

There has been significant interest in the broader business community regarding the
difference in the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) between the Linux and Open Source
solutions on one side and Microsoft's proprietary Windows solutions on the other.
Microsoft software is licenced to users on a feeforproduct
basis, whereas most Linux and
open source applications are available free of charge. There are, however, installation and
support costs to consider. We will take all such costs into consideration in the models we
present.
While it is difficult to qualitatively analyse all of the TCO factors at play, it is possible to
produce a reasonable firstpass
quantitative estimate for the instantiation and operation of
a complete computer environment and network infrastructure for a smalltomedium
organisation, to illuminate the TCO differences between these two competing platforms.
To that end, we have modelled an organisation with 250 computerusing
staff, an
appropriate number of workstations, servers, Internet connectivity, an ebusiness
system,
network cabling and hardware, standard software, and salaries for IT professionals to
establish and support this infrastructure and technology. We've also added IT training for
the staff along with expenditure items for ancillary IT systems and external consulting
staff to assist in making it all work.
We ran the model with two options: firstly, purchasing brand new hardware and network
infrastructure explicitly for establishing this organisation's computer systems; and
secondly, using preexisting
hardware and infrastructure. We also simulated the IT
expenses over a 3 year period, mimicking the operational lifespan
of many corporate
computer systems, and amortising the purchase and installation costs over that period of
time.
Throughout this comparison, we will be presenting the raw data as well as the explicative
methodologies used in the determination of the overall costs. While we have taken care
and... [continues]

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