[plug] Cost of Windows

[Leon Brooks]

Most people stop at the price of the OS. Why?

Workstation with a few real apps:

Function	Windows			Linux
---------------	-----------------------	----------------------
OS		Windows XP $675		Mandrake 8.1 $60
Office		Office XP $1072		StarOffice $0
					AbiWord $0
					Gnumeric $0
					KOffice $0
Virus Scanner	Norton 2002 $109	none $0
Minimal Games	MS AA Pack 1 $70	gazillions $0
		MS Ent Pack $66		 and
		MS Plus Ent $43		 gazillions
		MS Board $50		 of games
Flight Sim	MS FS 2002 $100		FlightGear $0
Basic Accountg	MS Money 2001 $65	GnuCash $0
Graphics	PhotoShop $1699		GIMP $0
CAD		Equivalent...?		QCAD $0
...etc... IDEs, fax S/W, emulators, vector drawing...
		> $3949 *or*stolen*

I can buy two complete computers (17" monitor, 800MHz, 256M, 30G) just for 
the price of either PhotoShop or WindowsXP+OfficeXP. Scary.

Server 10 users:

Function	Windows			Linux
---------------	-----------------------	----------------------
OS		Win2000 Server $2719	Mandrake 8.1 $60
Database	MS-SQL $5262		PostgreSQL $0
Email		Exchange $1241		PostFix $0
Mail Licences	CAL 5-pack $795		none $0
		$10,017			$60

Ten grand buys you a *nice* server.

Server 100 users:

Function	Windows			Linux
---------------	-----------------------	----------------------
OS		Win2000 Server $2719	Mandrake 8.1 $60
OS Licences	CAL-5 $437x2=$874	none $0
OS Licences	CAL-20 $1706x4=$6824	none $0
Database	MS-SQL 2000 $5262	PostgreSQL $0
DB Licences	CAL-1 $349x90=$31410	none $0
Email		Exchange $1241		PostFix $0
Mail Licences	CAL-5 $795x19=$15105	none $0
		$63465			$60

What can I say? A year's wages or use Linux? Let me think...

BTW...		Services/Netware $354	Mars or NCPFS $0
		Services/Unix $354	NFS $0
		Services/Windows $0	Samba $0
		Sys Management $2614	WebMin/LinuxConf/etc $0
		CAL-20 for above $1192	not applicable $0
		Firewall?		portsentry/etc $0
		IDS?			name it $0

Now, why would Linux be doing well in server space? D'uh?

Interesting fact from Indulis at the IBM presentation: on 2,000,000 seats 
worth of email server, the difference between Bynari and Microsoft Exchange 
licencing costs is approx $250,000 which will buy you a viable zSeries (== 
System/390) mainframe. So... pay your M$ tax plus an expensive cluster or get 
a mainframe with 60 years MTBF. Tough choice. (-:

Cheers; Leon