1: Cost comparisons are often misleadingLet’s get what may be the most controversial point out of the way early. First, in the server space especially, we should try to compare apples to apples. This means comparing
Windows Server to paid Linux. By far the most dominant flavor is Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), with about a two-thirds share of the paid enterprise Linux market, so this seems the most logical comparison. While there are plenty of free options out there, such as CentOS, for a business running mission-critical workloads, an unsupported operating system is a hard pill to swallow.
There are a couple of ways we can look at cost, neither of which is nearly as flattering to Linux as one might expect. First, we can look at the costs directly related to the acquisition of the platform. RHEL is a subscription-based license, meaning that rather than pay for the software itself, you pay for
server support. This doesn’t mean just phone tech support or troubleshooting (although that is included too, whether you want it or not) but also includes standard patches and bug fixes. Standard support for RHEL 5 Advanced Platform is $1,499 per year per server, or $4,047 for three years. Compare this with $3,999 for Windows Server 2008 Enterprise edition with free patching and bug fixes, and you can basically call it a wash unless you use a ton of phone support. And there are also features that aren’t included and must be purchased separately, such as Red Hat Directory Server — thousands more per year.
The other way of looking at cost is total cost of ownership (TCO) of the platform, and this leads into our next issue.
2: Expert talent is more readily availableWhen looking at TCO, we’re not just looking at the software costs but also at staffing and administration costs, costs due to downtime, hardware costs, etc. Of these, staffing is the largest, accounting for more than half of the TCO. Here, Windows wins out because IT pros experienced with Windows are much more plentiful and generally cheaper to hire than Linux experts and because they can often be more productive.
With Linux, efficient management over many machines usually means going to the command line and pounding out a script to automate a process — which is cool. However, with
Windows Server 2008, PowerShell is now built in, which means the Windows guys can do that too, arguably better. Add that to the System Center family of tools, where virtually all management tasks are available at the click of a button (and which really have no peer on the Linux side), and Windows is simply easier to manage.
3: Linux isn’t actually trying to compete head-to-headThe last reason Linux isn’t triumphing over Windows in the server space is that it’s not really the primary focus. Right now, both Linux and Windows are gaining in server market share. How is that possible? Old granddaddy UNIX is being thrown under the bus to make it happen. Today, companies are dumping their old mainframe or proprietary UNIX servers for cheaper x86-based commodity hardware. It’s easy for a Linux sales guy to come in and make the value proposition: “It’s essentially the UNIX you know and love, but it runs on hardware a fraction of the cost.”
Unfortunately, the market for UNIX conversions and mainframe modernization is drying up. When those deals are gone, Linux will have to compete head-to-head with Windows to continue its growth, and this is a much harder proposition to make. Why should an organization already using Windows change platforms and have to build whole new skill sets around Linux?
4: Windows offers familiarity and ease of useLet’s face it: Whatever else you might say about Windows, it is easier to use. We love our Start menu and our Task Manager and our system tray. Some of us are even starting to love our Vista Sidebar and gadgets. Young adults today never had to use MS-DOS, even if they started using computers at an early age, so they aren’t going to be comfortable at a Linux command line.
Don’t get me wrong — Linux has come a long way. But remember how far back it has had to come from — where just managing to install the operating system for a non-expert was considered a major triumph. There are still too many things in the Linux world that are expected to be done manually, like program installation. A majority of users will say, “I might have to compile something myself? No thanks.”
5: More software is availableHere’s another one that’s a pretty clear edge for Windows. It isn’t about being able to play the newest games, even if that is one of the most often raised issues against using Linux. Simply because Windows is the dominant operating system, there is much more software available for it than for Linux. Much of it comes from evil Microsoft itself.
A good example goes straight to one of open source’s greatest recent successes: OpenOffice. OpenOffice is great software… considering it’s free. I use it when I’m in a pinch on somebody else’s computer. It’s almost certainly adequate for a light user or a student typing up a couple of essays. As a writer, however, I can’t imagine being stuck without Microsoft Office for long. When it comes to features like SmartArt, quick table generation, editing and review functions, and inserting basically any kind of object into a document, there is no comparison. When you go beyond the word processor to the presentation software or spreadsheets, the gap grows even wider.
Now of course much of our favorite Windows software can be run using an emulator such as Wine, or on a virtual machine running Windows — but if we find ourselves doing that all the time, why use Linux in the first place?
For next five reasons you can visit here:
http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/10things/?p=556
