Your Choice Between Windows And Linux

[Allan Shaw]

       * Your Choice Between Windows And Linux

A few weeks ago, subscribers filled out a very
interesting survey of the Yankee Group about the
total cost of ownership, comparing Windows to Linux. Here is the
promised Linux Windows Unix TCO Executive Summary by Laura Didio,
Senior Analyst, the Yankee Group.

"Does Linux deliver significantly better performance,
reliability, manageability and ultimately lower Total Cost of
Ownership (TCO) and faster Return on Investment (ROI) than the
rival Windows and Unix operating system platforms?

Approximately 1,000 of you responded to our survey on those
questions. And you answered Yes. And No.

Yes, corporate customers report Linux does indeed provide
businesses with excellent performance, reliability, ease of
use and security. No, hype notwithstanding, Linux' technical
merits while first-rate, are equivalent but for the most part,
not superior to Unix and Windows Server 2003.

And in large enterprises, a significant Linux deployment or
total switch from Windows to Linux, would be three to four
times more expensive and take three times as long to deploy
as an upgrade from one version of Windows to newer Windows
releases.

The instances where Linux imparts measurably improved TCO
compared with Unix and Windows are in small firms with
customized vertical applications or "Greenfield" networking
situations.

The most surprising survey revelation 90% of the 300 large
enterprises with 10,000+ end users indicated that a significant
or total switch from Windows to Linux would be prohibitively
expensive, extremely complex and time consuming and not provide
any tangible business gains for the organization.

The survey further found that though Linux' momentum is
undeniable, the Open Source operating system will not dethrone
Microsoft's Windows as the leading server vendor in the next
two years. And Linux desktops will not even make a perceptible
dent in the 94% market share currently held by Windows desktops
between now and 2006.

Only 4 percent of Unix customers and 11 percent of Windows
businesses plan to replace all of their servers with Linux.
And less than 5% of organizations will replace their Windows
desktops with Linux.

The overwhelming majority of the survey respondents said Linux
is under evaluation. Licenses aside, Linux is most assuredly
not free -- a fact that corporations now begin to realize.

Survey Highlights

Among the other survey highlights

- To date, most of the defections to Linux are coming at the
   expense of mid-range Unix systems and not Windows.
- The lure of Linux for Unix shops is the extreme cost savings
   of the hardware.
- Some 21% indicated they would migrate a portion of their
   Windows desktops to Linux; 15% said they will add Linux
   desktops but will not replace Windows and the majority -- 57%
   said they plan no changes to their Windows desktop environment.
- A 54% majority of customers said they will leave their Windows
   servers intact; 25% reported they will migrate "a portion" of
   their Windows servers to Linux for specialized application
   tasks.
- Red Hat is the Linux vendor of choice for 46% of corporations,
   followed by Novell (SuSE and Ximian) with 19%. IBM and HP are
   far back with 9% and 4%.
- A 76% majority rated Linux and Unix reliability comparable.
- The biggest area of concern for Windows 2000 and Windows 2003
   customers is the amount of time spent installing security fixes
   and performing patch management. Security and patch management
   aside, the overwhelming majority of businesses -- 72% rated
   Windows reliability equal to Linux.
- A majority of large enterprises with 5,000+ end users said
   they will not install Linux as their primary server OS in the
   foreseeable future because it is much more expensive and
   requires from 25% to 40% more Full Time Equivalent (FTE)
   support specialists than Windows or Unix for that matter.
- Linux' lack of licensing indemnification is becoming more of
   a concern. Although 55% of businesses said it is "not a concern"
   45% indicated it is an issue. That is a sharp increase from
   the 8% of companies who said they were concerned in 2003.