Linux vs Windows TCO

The difference in Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) between Linux and open source solutions and Microsoft proprietary Windows solutions has great interest in the wider business community. Microsoft software is licensed to users in the form of paid products, and most Linux and open source applications are provided free of charge. However, installation and support costs must be taken into account. We consider all of these expenses in our proposed model.

In 2004, Microsoft asked the research company an independent investigation to compare the total cost of ownership (TCO) of Windows Server 2003 and Linux, and the company decided that Linux is easier to manage than Windows . This reduces the cost of the company (that is, it reduces TCO). According to Yankee Group research, despite the investigation, upgrading from one version of Windows Server to another version costs only a fraction of the cost of switching from Windows Server to Linux. The company pointed out that the security and reliability of the Linux server are improving and was concerned about being contained in Microsoft products. In a separate survey released by the open source development lab, Microsoft's survey was "outdated and unilateral", and since the Linux administrator managed more servers on average, we concluded that Linux's TCO is low It was.

According to the latest IDC report, the Windows Server market is becoming more popular than Linux based servers. Linux's annual growth rate in the x86 server division has declined from about 53% in 2003 (45% worldwide), Windows Server grows at about 20%, with a growth rate of minus 4% (less than 10%) did. The data shows that 2006 is a global proportion. At the same time, Windows continues to grow year after year, exceeding the gross growth rate of the x86 market in 2006 by 4% or more, indicating that Linux actually lost the market share of Windows Server. Linux servers currently account for 12.7% of the server market as a whole. Windows servers, on the other hand, accounted for 38.8% of all server revenue in the first quarter of 2007.