On Tue, Apr 08, 2003 at 07:01:20PM -0500, Shawn wrote:
> Well, I suppose when you look at it from an M$ point of view. I can pay
> $200 for a copy of Windows and still get updates for it for the next 3-5
> years. Instead with RedHat I'll have to pay $179 a year for the next 3-5
> years.
You can't get a retail copy of Windows XP Pro for $200. From Microsoft,
the *upgrade* IS $199 - the full version is $299. If you want to
upgrade that to Windows 2003, you'll probably pay another $199 (I'm
guessing at the upgrade price). As for eligibility, you're not eligible
to upgrade from NT 3.51 nor Windows 95 and get the upgrade price, nor
are you eligible to upgrade from Windows 2000 Professional to Windows XP
Home - you can only upgrade to XP Pro or you have to buy the full
license.
Say you bought Windows 2000 in 2001. Since then, to remain current, you
would have upgraded to XP Pro and again to 2003. So, in 3 years, you've
shelled out probably $300 for Win2K, $200 for the XP Pro upgrade, and
possibly another $200 for the Win2003 upgrade. Total: $700. With Red
Hat Enterprise Linux EW (assuming it existed in 2000 which it didn't),
you would have paid $179 for 3 years for a total of $537.
Most organizations won't be paying full retail. However, they'll have a
full set of applications that run on top of Windows that are licensed
separately. For example, my office Win2K desktop has licenses for
Office, Visio, Notes, Exceed, Winzip, and Kea term. I'm sure that there
are others I just can't think of off the top of my head. The Exceed
license alone retails for $380 or more than 2 years worth of EW
subscriptions! Don't forget to factor in updates for those products
too. The upgrade to the current version of Exceed is about $200 (I just
searched for it online). Assume you only upgrade once in the 3 years.
You've forked out more your Exceed license and 1 update than you have
for all 3 years of your EW subscription. You can quickly see that EW
can be *significantly* less expensive than a comparable Windows desktop.
In fact, for some cases, it may be cheaper for the organization to add a
2nd desktop with EW on it than it would be to license the comparable
Windows applications.
> Now the best deal IMO, is obviously the Personal one, where it's $60 a
> year plus free upgrades. That comes out a little cheaper than M$ and
> certainly better to me in the long run :)
You can get Red Hat Linux 9 for free with free updates. You can't get
any Microsoft OS for free (legally that is). Spending $60 per year is
optional and just gets you better service but isn't really necessary
(and yes, I've subscribed for home and at work).
I've said it before but I'll say it again. EW isn't for everybody. It
depends on the circumstances you're in, what software you need to run,
and what other agreements your firm already has in place (site licenses
obviously make a big difference!). I haven't even touched on the
support issues since that's a VERY big variable (and typically fudged in
most business cases I've seen).
.../Ed
Disclaimer: I have absolutely no financial interest in Red Hat other
than as a paying customer (both home and office). I don't have any EW
licenses, nor am I currently contemplating any.
--
Ed Wilts, Mounds View, MN, USA
mailto:ewilts@xxxxxxxxxx
Member #1, Red Hat Community Ambassador Program
