Enterprise management Associates has a new report out that debunks the primary myth in Microsoft's studies. Microsoft and some analysts claimed Linux has a higher Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) than Windows. They attributed the difference mainly to higher system management costs, and concluded that the higher TCO outweighed the much lower license and acquisition costs for Linux. However, in a new study of over 200 Linux enterprises, Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) found that this perception is no longer accurate. Sophisticated management tools now allow Linux management to be fast, effective, and inexpensive. With far lower acquisition costs, Linux is now a cost-effective alternative to Windows. EMA analyzed the cost factors cited in previous studies and found the following results:

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. Configuration management - supporting multiple versions of a given distribution has no discernible impact on Linux management. In some cases, respondents actually had more versions of Windows than Linux. Reliability - most respondents reported 99.99% or higher availability for their Linux systems. A significant number (17%) report no downtime at all. 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.... Resource costs - most administrators, for either Linux or Windows, earn under $60k. Salaries for combined Linux/Windows administrators are only marginally higher than for Linux-only administrators. Linux skills are readily available. Consulting and training costs - 79% of enterprises spent nothing on Linux consulting, and 63% spent nothing on training. Only 4% spent over $10K on consulting or training.

Source: EMAPrashanth RaiTag(s):Linux, Open+Source