Total Cost of Ownership
The 12/27-1/3 edition of NetworkWorld has a two-page Microsoft add beginning on the second page. It cites a Yankee Group study that "a significant switch to Linux from Windows or Unix could cost three to four times as much without delivering tangibly better performance or business value."I'm interested if anyone has any actual experiences in a midsized or large business setting that either supports or doesn't support this Yankee Group conclusion.
7 Comments:
I saw the same comment. Interestingly, an author named Matt Hines posted an article to CNET.com back in April that took the same dig at Linux deployments...citing Yankee Group research. Link: Moving to Linux may not save money--yet.
There is a statement in the second paragraph of that article that spells out precisely WHY Linux has great value for those interesting in moving to Linux. Here's the quote...
"At companies with 5,000 or fewer users, Linux can save more money than other systems, including Unix and Microsoft's Windows software, said the Boston-based company [The Yankee Group]"
Well, most companies don't have 5,000 or more users. The value of Linux has always been in leveraging the power of Linux for the small and medium-sized business. Because these types of business outnumber larger (enterprise-sized) operations, it is only a matter of time before the Linux offering, both on the server and desktop fronts) makes the breakthrough to these "under 5,000 user" companies.
Sure many will see Microsoft as the "brand name", but weaknesses like those found in Internet Explorer and Outlook and the overwhelming response to the Firefox browser (as of the time of this post, 16,007,315 downloads since November 7, 2004...Source) is a light shining on the potential in the open source communities for all of those "common" users to see.
Xandros Linux desktop distribution, by all reports I have read (and from personal experience), is probably the biggest threat as a desktop replacement to Windows. When I installed it, it recognized everything. I didn't have to tweak/reconfigure/fiddle with ANYTHING. It is my understanding that Xandros Desktop Management Server (DMS) is showing some real promise for the enterprise (Click here for a review of xDMS).
And, granted, that is my opinion and observation, but the transitional apps (Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice.org) are beacons for the "common user", many of which are likely to be in the very category that the Yankee Group is writing off: the "under 5,000 user" companies.
Also, I would note that the research reviewed in Hines' April 5, 2004 article (referenced above) was done by Laura Didio. Didio is notorious (well, in some of the Linux journals/blogs/etc.) for being a shill for Microsoft. Well, shill might not be fair...but, let me say see always seems to downplay the legitmate criticisms of Microsoft, while amping up the slightest issues with the growing open source/Linux efforts. Maybe not a shill, but doesn't seem to be all that fair and objective either.
DISCLOSURE: I own/operate a small technology company that, among other things, helps small and medium-sized businesses install Linux, migrate to Linux, or build/deploy Linux hardware. And, yes, I recommend Xandros Linux to my customers. I don't work for Xandros Linux, course it is fairly obvious I'm a fan.
CIO Today has an article on this topic.
"Total Cost of Ownership"
Total Cost of Ownership is a misnomer when it comes to microsoft software. No matter how much you spend on it, in the end, you "own" didly-squat with respect to the code.
With Free Software on the other hand, if you send in your changes and they get included in the next release, you could end up with some ownership.
Something to think about the next time someone mentions Total Cost of Ownership in this context.
A Nony Mouse
A Nony Mouse,
Is it possible to put a monetary value on this ownership (say the discounted cash flow from its exploitation by the owner)? In other words, can we set off the TCO of something with real dollars gained?
Paul Arne,
"Is it possible to put a monetary value on this ownership...?"
Not sure I follow your question. Do you mean - "Can we quantify the dollar value of our ownership in the code we are now co-developers of?"
First, this ownership may or may not arise depending on the project's requirements for copyright assignments of code accepted into the project.
My take is, if they require assignments, you end up with no ownership, if they don't require assignments, you end up with some ownership.
My thinking is that, if you do end up with some ownership, it is a little insurance that the rules of the game will not be changed up on you at some point. To my mind, these are difficult issues to work out in practice.
I have never really tried to answer your question for myself though. I just know the cost of data lock-in and of my hard earned skills/knowledge being made obsolete became to high for me in the non-Free Software world and I switched.
Also, I know now that this site is more concerned with the impact on the big corporations, but I tend to deal more with individuals and smaller companies.
I have never seen anyone call in their lawyers and go over the EULAs carefully before clicking on accept/agree. I believe that agreeing to such licenses in this manner is way to high a risk for people to take and I believe that the cost of taking legal advice before agreeing to each one is way to high a cost for myself and the people I deal with. Therefore, I have moved myself over to the Free Software side of things years back and am doing my best to get friends/family/clients to move as well.
Most of them think I am a bit over the top, but do any lawyers here think that it is safe for people to be agreeing to legal documents that they have not read or do not understand?
A Nony Mouse
A Nony Mouse,
Those are good thoughts. Especially interesting was the effects of the proprietary aspects of on the developer community: if that's what they know and all they know, they have little option...and probably a general lack of motivation to innovate.
Coincidentally, as interesting as the general gripe about "Microsoft stifles innovation" is, I think it has less to do with what they are doing, than it does with how their developers are living. It is really a mindset. Perhaps if in the next 5-10 years the open source community was validated as being "right" and achieved market supremacy (for lack of a better word), there would be some "slacking" too. Though I highly doubt that.
Interestingly, larger systems (biological or complex adaptive systems) have great opportunities for collaborative intelligence (and, thus, innovation) and great possibilities for...well, chaos.
Conversely, smaller systems have more "controllable" aspects (do the degree that control can be exerted on any process), but they have less opportunities for collaborative intelligence and, as a matter of course, innovation.
These principles are found in the hard sciences, but one can easily extrapolate these principles and see precisely how they apply in the complex adaptive system, which both the open source development community and the Microsoft development community are.
You can see it in online forums.
The amount of raw intelligence is hard to match. It, however, also is quite chaotic. That's when discipline MUST play a factor and refinement is necessary. As with anything that is taken from a raw product and refined, you will “lose something”. The open-source community, whether it realizes it or not, has been quite disciplined about what to “lose”. But what they have kept (the core security, the core stability, etc.) is the nugget that most users (maybe especially the business) community longs for. Firefox hasn't had, as of today, over 17 million downloads just because it has a nifty logo. It has had over 17 million downloads because the folks that have been assisting the 12 paid Mozilla developers have been remarkably disciplined about keeping the core value of web browsing at the heart of what they are doing. It's clearly paying off. IE, despite its dominant market share and Microsoft's best attempts, is whithering on the vine.
And, with IBM being the 2nd largest software maker in the world AND that they have devoted significant resources to supporting the open-source community (perhaps Linux, specifically), I wonder if they won't be viewed, 30 years from now, as the overall "winner". Surely, they made a colossal misjudgment about software in the early 80s, but in the mid-2000s, they came back and led the revolution that beat back their early 80s nemesis (i.e., Microsoft).
It would be any interesting (and perhaps delicious) twist of irony if nothing else.
Anyway, interesting thoughts...
Matt
P.S. A Nony Mouse...do you develop using L.A.M.P. approach? If so, I have a programming opening that I planned to contract out? If you are interested, shoot me an email: mdonovan@7compass.com
Matt
"P.S. A Nony Mouse...do you develop using L.A.M.P. approach? If so, I have a programming opening that I planned to contract out? If you are interested, shoot me an email: mdonovan@7compass.com"
I have done some LAMP stuff. L & A for sure.
Sometimes M but sometimes P for the third place.
and Python, PHP, &/or Perl for the fourth place.
Not looking for any extra projects at this time though. Thanks for the thought. Good luck with you efforts.
A Nony Mouse
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