The overall finding of a recent study by Robert Frances Group, sponsored by IBM, was that linux was 40% less expensive than a comparable Windows system and 54% less than Solaris, based on a three-year period of ownership for a system supporting 100,000 operations per second on the SPECjbb benchmark. The research was based on in-depth interviews with IT executives from more than 20 medium and large enterprises -- all with more than 250 employees -- in industries such as education, entertainment, finance, government and retail.

The study recommends executives consider Linux for most high-transaction environments. While admitting that Linux's cost savings have declined over the past few years, Robert Frances argues Linux will remain cheap enough relative to other systems to make any investment worthwhile.

The group also noted that Linux delivered enough benefits outside of TCO to justify investment. These benefits include Linux's flexible licensing model, the wide range of supported hardware platforms, a choice of support providers and the transferability of Unix administrator skills to Linux.

Linux still may be cheaper than Solaris or Windows, but the study agreed with Unilever that the price difference is not what it once was. "the study appears just as Unilever has revealed it is scaling back ambitious Linux plans announced two years ago. Unilever argues that Linux's cost benefits have declined so far that the project is no longer worth it."