* 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.
