The Yankee/Sunbelt study is hardly the first Windows vs. Linux TCO study. But it is one of the first by a major market-research outfit that was not funded by the Redmond software giant. Jupiter Research, Forrester Research and International Data Corp., among others, have done TCO studies at Microsoft's request and with its financial backing.
These Microsoft-funded TCO studies have become the crux of Microsoft's anti-Linux campaign, known as "Get the Facts." Microsoft officials said they have funded these studies because analysts didn't see the need to do them on their own.
Regarding Yankee's study, DiDio said "We did this because it needed to be done. Many of our customers say they need some unbiased, objective data."
Other key findings from the Yankee/Sunbelt study include:
To date, most of the defections to Linux are coming at the expense of mid-range Unix systems and not Windows.
The majority (54 percent of respondents) said, they will leave their Windows server intact, though 25 percent reported they will migrate "a portion" of their Windows servers to Linux for specialized application tasks.
The chief allure of Linux at this point is not surprisingly the fact that many customers like the idea of "free" licenses. Some 30 percent said they feel Linux is more reliable than Windows and 31 percent said they feel Linux is more secure than Windows, while another 29 percent expressed fears of being locked into an "all Microsoft environment."
A majority of large enterprises with 5,000+ end users said they will not install Linux as their primary server OS in the foreseeable future because it is much more expensive and requires from 25% to 40% more Full Time Equivalent (FTE) support specialists than Windows or Unix for that matter.
Within 24 months, the Yankee Group projects that businesses will expend as much time, money and resources securing their Linux systems and servers as they now devote to Windows security.