Migrate to Linux instead of Vista

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Mr I's comment - a smart move for ANYONE (except gamers... for now)

Comment A smart move for business

By Egan Orion: Tuesday, 08 July 2008, 1:59 PM
ganked from the inquirer

BUSINESSES DISMAYED at the prospect of being forced to move to Windows Vista, due to its associated hardware upgrade costs and poorperformance, might consider moving to Linux instead as a viable alternative. Orso a recent article appearing at PC World suggests.

Since Windows XP remains available only as a "downgrade" from Vista, atadditional cost, businesses that want to replace obsolescent PCs or need to addstaff are compelled to buy Windows Vista and then pay extra if they want to staywith Windows XP. In order to avoid the cost of "downgrading" to XP by migratingall desktops to Vista, they're faced with the added cost of all new Vistalicences, plus high hardware replacement costs because Vista requires new PCskitted out with at least 2GHz CPUs and 2GB of memory in order to runacceptably. Then there's also the fact that Windows Vista performs poorly, evenafter SP1.

Businesses that want to avoid such a large hit to their IT budgets shouldperhaps consider migrating to Linux instead. All of the Linux distributions areavailable either entirely free of charge or at relatively low cost includingvendor support.

Linux runs well even on older PC hardware, which means businesses can avoidhaving to purchase all new desktop PCs.

All of the major Linux distributions include free file and print servers,website and email servers and clients, office productivity applications,development toolsets and utilities.

Good Linux support is available from the larger distribution vendors atreasonable rates. Also, most cities and large towns have a local community oftechies who offer support for Linux and applications running under it.

Sure, a business might incur some setup, initial support and stafffamiliarisation costs, but just the additional Windows Vista-related expensesavoided within the initial year alone by moving away from a Microsoft-centric ITenvironment will likely be well worth making the switch. In addition, thefirst-year cost savings might be dwarfed by further IT cost savings realised infuture years by using Linux to avoid Microsoft's treadmill of recurring charges.

How much cash can a business save by making the switch to Linux instead of "upgrading" to Vista? Here's an admittedly incomplete, per-seat estimate of thecost savings:

........

ITEM			MIN		MAX
New PC Hardware		$	700	$	1,200
Windows Vista Business Edition		$	300	$	300
Windows XP Downgrade		$	0	$	50
Office Professional 2007		$	0	$	500
TOTALS		$	1,000	$	2,050

The above breakdown shows that a business might save from $1,000 to $2,050per seat by moving to Linux. The lower estimate assumes that it buys a veryinexpensive replacement desktop PC, won't remain on Windows XP and so won'tincur the "downgrade" charge for that, and already has a user licence for MSOffice. The higher estimate assumes that it buys a higher end desktop ornotebook PC, will stay with XP and so will incur the "downgrade" charge forthat, and purchases a user licence for MS Office.

In contrast, switching to Linux won't require a business to replace itsexisting desktop PC hardware or buy expensive operating system or officeproductivity applications licences.

The PC World article has a lot more details, but the business casefor switching to Linux instead of suffering through a forced and costlymigration to Windows Vista seems clear. µ

L'Inq
PCWorld