Linux vs Windows TCO

There has been significant interest in the broader business community regarding the difference in the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) between the Linux and Open Source solutions on one side and Microsoft's proprietary Windows solutions on the other.

Microsoft software is licenced to users on a feeforproduct basis, whereas most Linux and open source applications are available free of charge. There are, however, installation and support costs to consider. We will take all such costs into consideration in the models we present. While it is difficult to qualitatively analyse all of the TCO factors at play, it is possible to produce a reasonable firstpass quantitative estimate for the instantiation and operation of a complete computer environment and network infrastructure for a smalltomedium organisation, to illuminate the TCO differences between these two competing platforms.

To that end, we have modelled an organisation with 250 computerusing staff, an appropriate number of workstations, servers, Internet connectivity, an ebusiness system, network cabling and hardware, standard software, and salaries for IT professionals to establish and support this infrastructure and technology. We've also added IT training for the staff along with expenditure items for ancillary IT systems and external consulting staff to assist in making it all work.

We ran the model with two options: firstly, purchasing brand new hardware and network infrastructure explicitly for establishing this organisation's computer systems; and secondly, using preexisting hardware and infrastructure. We also simulated the IT expenses over a 3 year period, mimicking the operational lifespan of many corporate computer systems, and amortising the purchase and installation costs over that period of time. Throughout this comparison, we will be presenting the raw data as well as the explicative methodologies used in the determination of the overall costs. While we have taken care and effort to present a holistic analysis, we are mindful that no organisation is likely to operate with the exact parameters presented here, and we therefore recommend the use of the document as a guide only. Consider this document as a primer which you can use to generate an enhanced TCO model specifically tailored for your organisation, by removing those line items which don't make sense for your site and adding additional costs which are specific to your organisation.

Further, while this document makes express use of technology and services found within the IT industry, it is intended for an audience of nonIT executives within small to medium sized organisations.

The final results are summarized in the tables below. One compares the TCO difference between Standard Linux (namely the one that isn't acquired with a prepaid support contract) and Microsoft's platform. The second compares Red Hat's managed Enterprise

Linux and Microsoft's platform.