Link: Seeing through the Linux-Windows TCO comparisons.
Joe Barr reports a story that is distressing in so many ways.
Last August, Joe reported
how the City of Austin responded to a Microsoft license audit by swallowing huge fees for an Enterprise License agreement. Fast forward to earlier this month, when a Microsoft-funded study is released that claims Windows is cheaper than Linux in some applications.
Joe uses the City of Austin as an example to illustrate the flaws in this "total cost of ownership" (TCO) study. In fact, Joe finds the city is burning wagonloads of money on Windows licensing. See, the city buys Windows once when it purchases the PCs, and then buys it again at the end of year when it makes its Enterprise License payment to Microsoft. The city even has to pay for Windows licenses on desktop PCs that might not even run Windows. Ouch!
In these lean times, I'd rather see the extra money going to parks or libraries rather than Bill Gates' wine collection.
