On Tue, Apr 08, 2003 at 12:45:31PM -0500, David Krider wrote: > EW costs $179 per year to maintain. In other words, it takes $179 per > year to keep it on RHN. The $60/yr option is for the "consumer distro," > and the $96/yr option allows you to group those workstations for > convenient administration. Note that the $179/yr for EW is the "base" > price. It includes installation support and nothing else. The "normal" > price for EW is $300/yr, and that includes 9-9 M-F support. You're comparing Windows to Linux, so let's look at the total picture. Check out Microsoft's web site and see what it costs to log a single phone call. I believe it's between $200 and $300. If you're not going to be talking about the cost of Microsoft support, do not even look at the $300 EW annual subscription since then you won't be comparing apples to apples. > For my situation, I'm looking to replace 12 Unix engineering > workstations with x86 boxen. My choices are Windows or Linux. Now, my > company is huge. We have the highest license agreement level with > Microsoft. That makes current versions of Windows a mere, one-time cost > of something like $130. OS only. No applications. Do you run Office? How about compilers or other Windows applications? Open up the checkbook. You've also got an unfair advantage since you're a huge enterprise with a Microsoft discount agreement, but a tiny Linux shop. That's heavily weighted in Microsoft's favor, and they know it. Look, I know all the arguments about TCO, but > you're preaching to the choir. I have done both Windows and Unix > administration. But there's just no way that a (properly configured) > install of 2000 is going to cost me an extra $410 (3 x $179 - $130) to > admin over a (properly configured) install of EW over 3 years. I mean, > worst-case scenario is a re-image, which takes 30-45 minutes, but that > applies to either OS. Why do a 3-year study? Why not 5, since Enterprise Linux has a 5-year life cycle? During that 5-year cycle, there are free version upgrades. Windows does not give you that. An upgrade from Win2K to XP to 2003 is extra cost. Oh, you want an Office upgrade to go along with that? We'll charge you for that too. Look at *all* the pieces, not just the OS. > version, and, as of the end of the year, the updates go away. (Though it > might be argued that, behind the firewall, we don't need to keep up with > all the latest security patches. That's a debatable subject.) The debate is over if you use those workstations to do anything accessing outside services like browsing the web through a proxy server or reading e-mail. Security updates are mandatory. Many, many security holes are being targetted by data, not executables. html, MS Word documents, jpegs, etc. All that said, Enterprise Linux is not for everbody. Microsoft Windows is not for everbody. MacOS is not for everbody. Every product has a target, and it's possible that it's not a good fit for you. That doesn't mean it's a bad product or that the pricing is wrong. You just may not fit the target audience. That's true whether we're talking about operating systems, cars, or fast food. -- Ed Wilts, Mounds View, MN, USA mailto:ewilts@xxxxxxxxxx Member #1, Red Hat Community Ambassador Program
