[luau] News: Red Hat says Linux desktop should take on MS

Warren Togami warren at togami.com
Mon Jun 24 12:00:01 PDT 2002


http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-938700.html
Linux desktop should take on MS

Red Hat is warming to the use of the Linux operating system on desktop
computers, a difficult market where customers are picky and Microsoft is
the leader.

...

Price persuasion
But there's room for competition. For example, a company with 10,000
employees using computers only for basic tasks could buy a single copy
of Linux for $49, compared with Windows XP, which would cost somewhere
around $2 million, Kusnetzky said. That's a lot cheaper, even factoring
in the cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars for in-house support of
the Linux systems.

Microsoft disagrees.

"While we have seen an increase in interest in Linux on desktops,
customers who have done rigorous evaluations are overwhelmingly telling
us that Linux's total cost of ownership is considerably higher, and the
business value is lower than Windows," Peter Houston, senior director of
Microsoft's Windows Server Group, said in a statement. "Key factors
included the cost of desktop management, retraining costs and
availability of applications." 

(How the heck does Microsoft get these numbers!?)





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