Linux Section

The cost of Linux

Matt Asay's AC/OS blog says that one of the "expenses" noted in Microsoft TCO studies is the cost of training. He says:

 If you read Microsoft's TCO case studies, its customers only state
 that Microsoft is cheaper because they didn't want to invest in
 any new training, which is a bit of a canard since Unix skills
 transfer automatically to Linux skills and, last time I checked,
 Unix predates Windows (so, in many cases, it is Unix skill, not
 Windows skill, that needs transferring....); 
 

While that might be true in some places, we all know that there are plenty of Windows folk who know nothing at all about anything but Windows, so I'm not sure that offers much against Microsoft's position. However, he also notices the thing all us Unix folk know to be true:

Linux requires fewer support resources.
 

There's another side to that. Every Unix run business that switched to Windows will tell the same story: they immediately had far more support problems and needed far more people to handle the needs.

Every customer I have that even just switched away from dumb terminals to PC's but left the Unix servers in place still has the same complaints: every day, something goes wrong somewhere. Most of them end up having to hire in-house support people they never needed before drinking the Gates brew. Where they formerly could rely entirely upon occasional help from outside people like me, now they need one or more inside people working every day. It's disgusting, but at least those people know what they lost: there are many more who never did anything but Windows, so for them, the extraordinary support needs seem natural.

Matt says Linux is taking a bite of Windows turf. May Linux (and Mac and even SCO if they can survive) gnaw the legs right off the beast.

1 comment

More Articles by Tony Lawrence - Find me on Google+

Jump to Comments

Many of the products and books I review are things I purchased for my own use. Some were given to me specifically for the purpose of reviewing them. I resell or can earn commissions from the sale of some of these items. Links within these pages may be affiliate links that pay me for referring you to them. That's mostly insignificant amounts of money; whenever it is not I have made my relationship plain. I also may own stock in companies mentioned here. If you have any question, please do feel free to contact me.

Specific links that take you to pages that allow you to purchase the item I reviewed are very likely to pay me a commission. Many of the books I review were given to me by the publishers specifically for the purpose of writing a review. These gifts and referral fees do not affect my opinions; I often give bad reviews anyway.

We use Google third-party advertising companies to serve ads when you visit our website. These companies may use information (not including your name, address, email address, or telephone number) about your visits to this and other websites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services of interest to you. If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices about not having this information used by these companies, click here.