Linux Report Challenges MS TCO Claims

Nothing chaps Microsoft's craw more than a little competition and open source rival Linux has been the Beast of Redmond's chief craw-chapper for some time. After years of what Linux sympathizers have called a Microsoft F.U.D. (fear, uncertainty, doubt) campaign against Linux' total cost of ownership (TCO), Open Source Development Labs (OSDL) have dropped a little cost research of their own. OSDL and member company Levanta are citing a co-sponsored study from "vendor neutral" Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) that claims Microsoft's information is outdated and inaccurate. Microsoft has cited earlier studies by industry analysts on the Productivity - Linux tends to be more productive, as Linux administrators tend to manage more servers than Windows administrators, and Linux systems tend to handle greater workloads than Windows systems. Provisioning - 75% of administrators using sophisticated tools can provision a system in less than 1 hour; one third can provision a system in less than 30 minutes. Patch management - most Linux administrators spend less than 5 minutes per server per week on patch management. Sophisticated management tools reduce this effort even further. Problem resolution - in over 60% of cases, when problems occur in Linux environments they are diagnosed and repaired in less than 30 minutes, over 8 times faster than industry average. Management and support - 88% of enterprises with Linux and Windows spend less effort managing Linux; 97% believe it is, at worst, the same for both systems. Respondents with sophisticated management tools all report Linux management is the same or easier than Windows management. 'Past Microsoft-sponsored reports on Linux management are simply outdated and one-sided,'' said Matt Mossman, CEO of Levanta. ''The EMA study has confirmed what the Linux community has known to be true for some time now - that the F.U.D is unfounded, and that management doesn't have to be viewed as a red flag when considering the overall TCO of Linux.'' Recently, Microsoft CEO Bill Gates suggested that MIT's Linux-based $100 laptops were a here