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Yankee Group Survey Says Windows, Linux TCO Equal
Posted by
timothy
on Mon Apr 04, 2005 07:26 PM
from the don't-trust-statistics-unless-they-apply-to-you dept.
from the don't-trust-statistics-unless-they-apply-to-you dept.
prostoalex writes "A new survey by Yankee Group analyst Laura DiDio shows Windows and Linux are viewed as equal by U.S. businesses. In the eternal OS wars, '88 percent of respondents said that the quality, performance and reliability of Windows was equal to or better than Linux.' Companies were also asked to rank the operating systems on security. On a scale of 1 to 10 'companies rated Microsoft's security at 7.6, double the rating in a similar survey conducted last year. Linux's rating was mostly the same at 8.3.' Conclusion? 'DiDio said that most companies -- whether large or small -- rarely take the huge step of replacing one operating system with another. Instead, they usually add a mix of Windows and Linux server software to expand functionality.' Microsoft used last year's Yankee Group survey results in their Get the facts campaign."
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What are they using? (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't use an OS that you don't like, and if that's not true (e.g. you're forced to use a pre-installed OS), then you probably wouldn't know any better alternative if you've been using only one OS.
If a Linux-only user said Windows is better, or vice versa, what does that mean? How does he come to this conclusion? The most credible answers should be from Multi-OS users.
I'm not saying this study is inaccurate, but there are simly too many things to consider, and this may well lead to a simple conclusion - software choice is more on personal preference than anything else.
Re:What are they using? (Score:4, Insightful)
More importantly, how many people said linux was better versus people that said windows was better...
This post seems suspiciously void of those kind of common-sense numbers.
Parent
A guess? (Score:5, Funny)
A quick guess -
1% preferred Windows, rather than an office in the middle of the building with no natural light.
87% didn't really understand the question or were afraid to show they didn't know, and said they were equal.
12% said Linux was better.
Parent
here's the survey (Score:5, Informative)
oh, and btw - it was sent out to readers of the w2k news magazine:
http://www.w2knews.com/index.cfm?id=463 [w2knews.com]
So, the sample of survey respondents was about as controlled as a george bush or saddam hussein political ralley.
More at: http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20040324
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Re:here's the survey (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:What are they using? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Brought to you by... (Score:5, Insightful)
it's obvious she's a microsoft employee, and the yankee group have destroyed any credibility they 'might' have had by continuing to employ her.
non-story, complete fud
Parent
Re:What are they using? (Score:4, Informative)
Then again, this only works with people who know what they hell they are doing. No matter what I would never recommend Windows as a internet-facing server. I run a Windows 2003 server here in my home but it is just to learn it and host a small site with little traffic.
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Re:What are they using? (Score:5, Insightful)
Which goes the same for pretty much any O/S. If you have a pinhead they will configure the machine insecurely.
No matter what I would never recommend Windows as a internet-facing server. I run a Windows 2003 server here in my home but it is just to learn it and host a small site with little traffic.
You mean even if the figures say that Windows is more secure you will never choose it? Or are you only referring to the current release?
Whatever, I think that Linux advocates should take a lesson from history, it is really hard to maintain an O/S distinction in the security area. The only reason Linux is any better is that UNIX machines have been Internet connected by default for about 15 years while with windows its only about 8. Read the CERT advisories from the 90s, they are almost all reports of UNIX vulnerabilities.
UNIX got cleaned up, Windows will be cleaned up. Back in the 90s UNIX was a byword for insecurity, people still used SUID scripts and shadow passwords were only used by a minority.
What is more interesting here is the derrivative. The perception of Windows is improving rapidly, the perception of Linux is pretty static. I don't see a heck of a lot of new security action going on in the Linux world. There is a heck of a lot going on in the Windows world.
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So all OSes are built exaclty the same? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the same argument as the old saw about how simply because Windows is the dominant consumer operating system it is the target of more malware. It ignores the fact that operating systems are not all built in the same fashion. For example, what about pre-OS X versions of the Macintosh? What about OpenBSD or Bastille Linux?
These discussions about OS security tend to ignore the fact that the *NIX distro or Windows version you're using can significantly impact security. Just as all OSes are not the same in terms of usability, I think it's a gross simplification to say that they're pretty much equal in security.
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Re:What are they using? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you don't see much happening with regard to security in the Linux and UNIX world, then you simply aren't really paying enough attention. UNIX is getting fitted with a new, significant, very powerful, security architecture. The difference is aking the the difference between a single-user and a multi-user os. It's coming to Linux via SELinux (though there are other implementations of the basic concept such as RSBAC). The BSDs have it in TrustedBSD, and the new (open source) Solaris 10 has it (Trusted Solaris has been integrated into the main branch). Does Windows have anything even close anywhere on the horizon? No.
Sure, for all of these systems the security architecture is new, and by default it is often either off, or in a relatively minimal configuration. The point is that it is already developed, and implemented, and in the respective kernels. From here it's a matter of educating users and developers, getting better application support allowing for stronger/stricter policies by default, and building better tools to configure and administer the system. For Windows any level of Mandatory Access Controls is still in the hazy future, to be implemented, at best, in the release after Longhorn. By the time Windows secures all its holes UNIX may well have moved a quantum leap ahead.
Jedidiah.
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Re:What are they using? (Score:5, Informative)
Windows may claim to have some sort of limited MAC based on certain roles, but Microsoft claims a lot of things about windows which is not true.
For isntance they liked to call the NT kernel a 'Microkernel' back in the day when people cared about that sort of thing. Of course this is bullshit. It has certain aspects of a microkernel, but it is not.
NT security model follows the Unix one which is called the 'Discretionary Access Control', or DAC.
DAC is based on authentication based on identity. You login as a user and that user has certain rights to certain files. Your identity is your username, which is realy just a repsentation of your UID numbers.
You log in as root, you have unlimited access to your system.
Also any rights of programs you run is based on your UID and GUID numbers (unless the program's setuid bit is used). If you can access a file, so can your program. If you can't access a file then neither can the program your using.
In Unix this dividing line between users is VERY strong. It was designed ground up as a multiuser enviroment and if you can't do something, then neither can your programs your running (except for the setuid, or if you use sudo.)
Setuid posses big security risks and is used sparingly and is ignored for certian types of programs, such as shell scripts, which are easily perverted.
Windows, for this sort of thing, sucks. It originally was a single user enviroment and with Windows 2k/XP it has a single user API grafted onto a real Multi-user NT OS. This causes all sorts of exceptions having to be made for all sorts of programs and is one of the reasons Windows is harder to secure vs Linux/Unix.
MAC is not extend access control lists!!! ACLS != MAC.
Mandatory Access Controls are something else completely. It's NOT BASED ON UID OR GUID. In Linux it's used in addition to DAC and doesn't replace it but it allows much tighter controls.
SELinux was developed by National Security Agency (NSA) to provide a framework for building Role Based Access Control.
Say I am root, I can set it up so that under different circumstances I can and cannot do different things. If I login thru SSH I can set it up so that I have different role then if I am logged in at a local terminal.
Literally I can, with a SELinux-enabled Linux computer, give you my ROOT PASSWORD and a let you log into my computer and move around in it with no risk of you doing anything bad to me.
And this also happens to programs that run under my UID. Now with Unix you setup a fake user to run applications/services like Apache.. However with SELinux I could safely run Apache under UID 0. (root).
Even if Apache had a huge buffer overflow and the attacker was able to execute successfully some shell code and gained access as root/administrator to my machine, he would only be able to fuck with files that Apache needs to run. Any other services, any other programs would still be completely off limits.
AND this requires no reprogramming of the Apache server. This rules are set below programs, below the file system, all the way to the very core of the kernel. From hardware to the very top levels of the OS there is no way around MAC, unless the rules were designed badly.
Any violation, or unexpected activity of the Apache server would be logged and recorded.
This describes Windows's security model and gives it the military term of 'C2' security.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/93362/EN-US/ [microsoft.com]
SELinux gives Linux OS the ability to have B-level security.
Redhat ES 4 and Fedora Core 2, and Fedora Core 3 have SELinux, but are not 'trusted' OS's yet. The rules that they use are fairly liberal and are designed to provide maximum compatability with existing applications yet provide high levels of security for servi
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Bzzzt. Wrong. (Score:5, Informative)
Unix and Windows use what is called 'Descresionary Access Controls', or DAC.
What your talking about is, probably, ACL. Access Control Lists.
ACLS are normal, Windows has ACLs so does Linux.
What you mean are extended ACLs. Windows NT had support for Extended Access Control Lists. Which goes beyond the model created for Unix which is:
user, group, everybody else (world)...
read, write, execute.
EACLs are NOT MANDATORY ACCESS CONTROLS. Mandatory access controls are something else completely and is not based on your username or what groups your user belongs to. Windows simulates certain role based authentaction, but it's not realy MAC.
MAC in SELinux are also RBAC. It allows a framework to be developed so that you can have a truly 'trusted linux' setup and is used in addition to the normal DAC that is used in Windows and Linux already.
NT does not, nor ever had, MAC.
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Mod parent down: -1 WRONG (Score:5, Informative)
You obviously do not know what Mandatory Access Controls are.
Sorry, you're the one who doesn't know what they are. Windows does not have them, and neither did VMS. MACs are not ACLs (which VMS had, NT has and Linux and Unixes now have, but only acquired fairly recently and don't much use).
MACs are a tool for setting up other access restrictions, based on how you access the system (console, SSH, HTTP, etc.) and are orthogonal to user identity-based access controls. If I configure the system to disallow anyone who logged in via SSH from touching any system or user files, I could give you my root password and you couldn't do any damage. More importantly, I could rest easy about remote root exploits in OpenSSH, or any sort of privilege escalation attack. Even if you manage to fool the OS into thinking you are a different user, you're not going to be able to fool it about how you're talking to it.
I repeat: Windows does not have Mandatory Access Controls.
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Re:What are they using? (Score:4, Insightful)
There's a lot of "security action" going on in Windows because there's a lot that needs to be done. If they were to get close to the security of the average FreeBSD box (like, never) that activity would slow down too.
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Re:What are they using? (Score:5, Informative)
Red Hat:
http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/bymetric?searchview&q
Microsoft:
http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/bymetric?searchview&q
Guess which list is longer?
SELinux, Novell's SUSE Linux CC EAL4+ certification (where's XP's/2003's EAL4+ cert?).
Not to mention that the French government is putting 7 million euros into creating a Linux derivative with a CC EAL5+ certification. Windows ahead? Pah.
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Re:What are they using? (Score:5, Interesting)
The joke is on Thompson, he reinvented VMS badly.
For many years now Microsoft has been patching NT, a single-user system only really suitable for small local networks, into a multi-user system that can cope with many large networks.
Windows NT has always been at core a multi-user operating system. The kernel architecture is derived from VMS which is itself heavily influenced by Multics and ITS. This is not really a surprise since there are not all than many people who have designed O/S and pretty much everything has its roots ultimately in Multics and project MAC.
The problem that faces both UNIX and Windows NT when it comes to networking is that multi-user security and network security are two absolutely different things. The features you need for one do not help much with the other.
Most production Apache servers run on a system that has at most three active accounts. Root, apache and maintenance. To all intents and purposes the separation of apache and root does little more than help prevent the system partion being corrupted, it does not really do much for security since all the data assets of the machine are going to be accessible from the apache account.
If you wanted to actually use the O/S security mechanisms to bear in a meaningful way you would have to configure the Web server to respond to data access requests by spawning off a new process and locking it down with the appropriate system privs each time a privileged access was performed. This is technically possible in both Unix and Windows but it will grind the machine down if you try it with any appreciable load.
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Re:What are they using? (Score:4, Funny)
Final step: unplug Windows machine from network.
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Re:What are they using? (Score:5, Interesting)
It's really too bad that we don't have access to the actual study. Without it it is hard to judge very much. I went to the Yankee Group web site and found their press release, which is a little bit more informative than the news item, but not much. Elsewhere on the Yankee Group site they reveal that the study will not be available until JUNE 2005. Funny that they are issuing press releases now about a study that won't be released for two months. I wonder if that is so that they can have their impact now and defer the hard criticism?
Anyhow, there was an interesting bit in the YG press release:
I think that this gives us a hint of what is going on. If MS Windows were really perceived as better than Linux, or even equal, the cost of making a change and general inertia would presumably result in little Linux adoption. The fact that the same businesses in which MS Windows has an overall reputation of being better than Linux are adding Linux or shifting partly to Linux suggests that there is actually a perception of Linux as better and/or cheaper. I suspect that what is going on is that the reputation questions were answered largely by managers with little firsthand technical knowledge, who have, however, been pushed by their technie subordinates to allow a shift in the direction of Linux.
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Re:What are they using? (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, who could it be? Could it be Red Hat, SuSE, IBM or some other pro-Linux company? I have serious doubts about that. What about Microsoft? Well, MS has certainly paid for other "studies" to be done in the past. So I don't think there would be any major reason to not count MS in on this "study". Basically we just need to find out _who_ paid for this "study" to really see where the bias lays.
I remember last year I had a phone call from some unknown company that was doing a "study" about MS. I was asked how I felt about MS as a company. How I felt about the products put out by MS and if I "trusted" MS. As soon as I answered that I "did not trust MS as a company", I was told my "interview" was over and "thank you for your time". So it seems as soon as one of these companies get a negative response about the company that are footing the bill, the interview dies.
Does anyone know who _paid_ for this "study"?
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Re:What are they using? (Score:4, Interesting)
Who the hell are "the respondents"? What was the methodology? What was the exact wording of the question?
The list goes on
Sorry, I conduct research for a living. This kind of drive-by "journalism," simply report-what-the-findings-were reporting pisses me off to no end.
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No comment... (Score:3, Funny)
If they say that Windows is better than Linux, there's a shitstorm of comments. Ditto if they say Linux is better than Windows. But either my timing is good today, or no one has anything to say about them being equal. :P
Re:No comment... (Score:5, Insightful)
So, they ask the bosses "What is the TCO for Windows-based servers?"
"I don't know"
Then, they ask the bosses "What is the TCO for Linux-based servers?"
"I don't know"
Since "I don't know" equals "I don't know", the conclusion is that the operating systems have equal TCOs, at least in the eyes of the business managers.
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Opinion Based (Score:5, Insightful)
Notice, it doesn't say security professionals for security, it doesn't say economists for TCO, it says companies. I'm sorry, but the first thing to enter my mind in this situation is a "Pointy Haired Boss" filling these things out. It's basically an opinion survey, pointless in anything but spreading FUD.
That's the point (Score:5, Insightful)
Instead of taking it as FUD and discarding it, consider it as a TODO list to increase your favorite OS acceptance (whatever that may be).
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Not FUD! (Score:5, Insightful)
The whole point of this of course isn't to compare the platforms or make a suggestion on which is better, it just conveys the feelings of their respondants.
Should this be used as a basis for a decision for what to use? Of course not!!! Is this an interesting insight into the current thinking of corporate IT departments? Yes.
It isn't FUD and isn't pointless, but if you take any of this as FACT, thats your mistake. This is simply an interesting look at current thinking. If this thinking is correct or not isn't the point. Its like saying a poll finding 80% of people are against the war in Iraq is FUD. That poll wouldn't wouldn't mean we should or shouldn't be there (as the respondants may not really be qualified to know), it would just give an interesting view of what people are thinking.
Read this article as such.
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Re:Not FUD! (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe and maybe not. From the article we really don't know who was surveyed. Given Didio's history I wouldn't put it past her to have selected the people/companies being questioned to give whatever results she's being paid to find this week.
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equal? (Score:3, Interesting)
From my experience, this seems to be fairly accurate (as far as company's interpretations). Can anyone else back that up?
So consider... (Score:5, Interesting)
Thus, they have the ability to directly compare between both. If they find Linux to be infinitely better, they would switch. Different tasks -> different tools, however, so they use both.
DiDio. Why am I not surprised? (Score:5, Interesting)
The non-biased information all says the obvious: Linux has TCO ownage on Windows. That said, I'd like to see a TCO study where Linux and Windows are compared to MacOS X, especially now that Apple has a relatively cheap model that could be a great replacement for enterprise desktops.
Re:DiDio. Why am I not surprised? (Score:5, Informative)
In fact, her position has often been more anti-Linux than pro-Microsoft. This is the same Laura Didio that signed the SCO NDA back in 2003 and came back to report: [computerworld.com]
"The courts are going to ultimately have to prove this, but based on what I'm seeing ... I think there is a basis that SCO has a credible case," and "This is not a nuisance case."
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This says it all: (Score:4, Informative)
com'on guys, microsoft.com needs some traffic
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Re:DiDio. Why am I not surprised? (Score:4, Interesting)
The fact is that the OS is not a big price for a major company. When I can go on dell.com and order 10 2.4GHz Celeron machines with a copy of WinXP Pro for $349, it's not a big deal at all.
Let's say these are for secretarial use. 99% of secreteries know how to use Windows, Word and Outlook.
Let's say I also spend $200-$300 (a day basically) on a techinican to set up a group policy and install Firefox on all these machines. These machines now can't run
Looking at the Windows startup cost it's $349x10 + $300 = $3790.
Now let's see the Linux cost. I'm going to get a maximum of $50 off those Dell machines for chosing Home instead of Pro, I can't 'not have' Windows on it. So that makes it $299/machine. Let's say the cost of installing Linux on each of these is $0.
Now let's look at my army of typists. None of them know how to use Linux/GNOME, OpenOffice or Evolution. So I train them. I hire a training guy to come in for a day to give them a crash course on how to use Linux, and he charges me $200. However, I've got to pay my typists anyway, $100/ea for the day. So that's $100x10 + $200 = $1200.
Linux startup cost: $2990 + $1200 = $4190. Windows wins.
Now, this is probably a bad example, but training costs, which are not going to change for the short to medium term, are very expensive.
For many small businesses this is the situation they have, and it's even worse if they have specialist apps they need to run on Windows.
So saying 'Linux has TCO ownage on Windows' is a bit unfair. It's very much true (IMO) for servers and workstations. But for average 'business desktops' I don't think it is.
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Re:DiDio. Why am I not surprised? (Score:4, Insightful)
Now lets add on the fact you might need a server to store the files with 10 CALS. Then you might need a copy of Exchange so that email can be managed. Suddenly your costs are rocketing in both technician time & software costs.
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Windows XP and 2000 arn't bad, just expensive (Score:3, Insightful)
As for performance and driver support, Linux wins on performance but windows wins on support.
I'd say they are equal if you discount price, which this survey did.
Re:Windows XP and 2000 arn't bad, just expensive (Score:4, Interesting)
Seconded. After the switch to NT, Windows was actually quite usable for both servers and workstations at my previous job. Our IIS webserver had an uptime of over 180 days. (Pity we had to move it, I'm curious how long it would have lasted.)
When the engineers switched to Linux, though, there were all kinds of stupid problems getting it working. Some of them were networking, some of them had to do with flawed implementations of stuff we needed to work. (i.e. on dual-proc machines, the clock would sometimes jitter back and forth a second or two.)
I'd like to mention a couple of things, though, since dues with mod-points are often vindictive when legitimate complaints about Linux surface:
1.) This was a couple of years ago. Those problems may or may not still exist. I think it'd even be fair to say that most of the problems were likely unusual. The workstations were both development stations AND custom software was being written on them.
2.) Some of the networking problems we had may not necessarily have been the fault of Linux on the workstations. It was, however, very difficult to tell. I remember watching the engineers googling for various networking tools just to narrow down the list of suspects.
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Re:Windows XP and 2000 arn't bad, just expensive (Score:5, Interesting)
Price isn't the only aspect of the idea of licensing software. I think many people don't realize how easy it is to get hardware, and how fluid the hardware situation can be.
Say you have some people doing a data entry job. Say that for whatever reason, you have a sudden excess of data that needs to be entered. With a Linux set up, you could take an old computer, put together a terminal, and have someone enter data for a day, and then you can throw that computer back in a closet. With Windows, you would need to buy a seperate license for that computer, even if you were using it for a day. Similiar situations exist all over, from small jobs like this, to someone who might have a temporary spike in web traffic for a week, and needs another server to cover it. Dealing with the technicalities of getting a license for these things would be somewhere between a nuisance, and a threat (if you do it wrong).
Many people, especially in management, wouldn't realize this is a problem, because they grew up in an era when your computer hardware was too heavy and rare to move. Now, when you could get a P-266 off of a pile, or at a garage sale, and turn it into a backup webserver in one hour, the entire idea of licensing specific computers makes less sense.
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No surprise (Score:4, Funny)
DiDio (Score:5, Interesting)
rather... (Score:4, Funny)
Enough of this TCO crap (Score:4, Insightful)
Laura DiDio is well known at Groklaw (Score:4, Informative)
But then, maybe they're all wrong and Mrs. DiDio is right. After all, she's an analyst, right?
Its all in how you chose your words (Score:5, Interesting)
May be more accurately phrased:
In terms of security, Yankee Group's survey showed a sharp rise in companies' perception of Microsoft's security level, bringing it closer to the assessed security level of Linux.
We're still reporting DiDio? (Score:5, Insightful)
According to the article, she's now claiming to have done yet another study which no doubt will get debunked within a couple hours but still cited by microsoft (sans the debunking) months later.
So, a simple question for everyone? Why bother debunking it? Anybody with more than half a brain already knows Didio is a paid liar, so she's not going to care if you drive a truck through her arguments. The other people on
DiDio is quoted on Groklaw a lot.... (Score:5, Interesting)
So it's particularly interesting that "TCO is equal" is the best she could come up with. If that's the best they can manage, it's a huge win for Open Source. When TCO is equal, why on earth would you pick the software that costs more up front?
The claim must be that Linux costs more to run, since it's free to install. That was the exact method that Microsoft used for ages to get ahead in the market... it was cheaper up front but cost more to run. That can actually be a very smart business decision, since presumably you'll have more money later than you do now, particuarly if your business is just getting off the ground. (That's part of why leases do so well.)
Of course, we all know that Linux is probably cheaper to maintain once you have the skills to do so, possibly by an order of magnitude, due to the absolute control you have over the system and the enormous power of the built-in scripting languages.
But even if you grant that it's more expensive to run, this study shows that Linux is a good choice for many businesses, particularly small ones, or companies growing very quickly without a lot of capital to do it.
How long is a piece of string? (Score:4, Insightful)
The number of Linux *desktops* in "corporate" environments is vanishingly small, so I don't know how any responses could be statistically significant.
Linux *servers* will be more in evidence, but the role they play will vary significantly. In smaller companies, they may well be used for file and print services. In larger companies, they probably won't because AD makes much more sense in that environment. Mostly, Linux servers will be web servers and the TCO will depend almost entirely on the type of application you're trying to build and the development and support time using the chosen tools (J2EE/PHP/CGI/Perl/bash...).
So for *most* Linux deployments, it's not a question of Windows vs Linux, but the TCO of Visual Studio/SQLServer/IIS vs Websphere or some FOSS solution.
Which might explain why the survey "reveals" so little...
Re:DiDio = Shill (Score:5, Insightful)
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Of course she did (Score:5, Informative)
Some readers may not be familiar with her work since SCO has pretty much fallen off the pages of Slashdot. Those of us who frequent www.Groklaw.net are quite familiar with her. Her 'reportage' on the SCO story has been so slanted and devoid of reality that some of us wonder if she's from the same planet we are. To put this in context: Groklaw is Pamela Jones' blog. Pamela will delete a post if she thinks the poster was even thinking rude thoughts. Pamela is really really polite. Pamela was once reduced to calling this lady Didiot. You really have to be something to get Pamela that riled!
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Re:Good as each other (Score:5, Insightful)
Non-sequitur.
I find windows easy to use and install, call me a point a click nub, but if i can do alot without having to remember commands, it works in my favor.
Appeal to tradition.
What happens when say, a linux company starts comming as big as Microsoft, are they being as bad
Appeal to fear.
and lets be honest, alot of windows problems are C++ buffer over runs which as it fault of the languge, not the programming,
False premise.
also being the most widly used OS its bound to have more holes discoverd as more people (like 12 year olds now can get on net and learn how to crack programs and find security holes) are doing it on windows systems.
Red herring.
Also another side and my second closing (lol) is that Microsoft does alot of good. Gates give the most to charity (i think he gives the most in the world),
Appeal to wealth and honor by association.
there traninig scheme is good with alot of people doing, I for 1 am starting my MCSE in september, and have a big reasearch department,
Untenable appeal to authority.
look a mobile computing, wireless, the whole wireless home idear with windows media centre.
Meaningless statement.
I wonder how much of the advanced we have today, would be here without MS.
Historian's fallacy and/or hindsight.
Got any more fallacious thinking?
Parent
Re:Good as each other (Score:5, Interesting)
Your conceptions are clearly misguided on the basis that you seem to not know what you are talking about.
This is obviously not a jab at you personally or professionally. I'm sure you are extremely qualified and good at whatever it is that you do.
However, you are clearly lost. Bill Gates personal life and his business acumen and behavior are two completely different things. Praising the man for his general charity doesn't expound to his or the companies he works for behavior in the computing industry. Please learn to seperate the two. That said you would do yourself good to try other operating systems.
Hosting via Windows is russian roulette. I say this because i've done the real life test myself. I'm no windows professional. Infact, in Dec of 1994 I stopped using windows when an OS/2 warp disk of mine died and an IBM engineer at the time gave me a copy of linux. There are so many black magic items in Windows that it would take an increasing amount of time for me to learn them all. Windows isn't easy to learn, it's easy to click alot of buttons and try to get it working but that doesn't enable me to understand what is going on or what is happening with my computer.
This has lead me to believe that windows administrators simply don't care about their systems enough to know how they work. They just want a patch or a quick fix or to press a couple of buttons and reboot. I've even extended myself to try and find a good windows administrator to learn from. I hate windows, but I'm clearly trying to understand where the low cost TCO and ease of use come from. If anyone is willing to help with this please feel free to contact me.
The documentation via Microsoft is often incorrect or not detailed. In most cases the behavior exhibited isn't what the documentation is really for and/or there are completely missing chunks of steps via documentation. An example of this would be smartcards. In Unix land, these problems are mitigated by having the source. Also, man pages usually are exacting, so my questions are answered. This isn't available via windows.
I switched over a heavily trafficed site to Windows based on contract purposes and it crashed, repeatedly. Why? I'm still amiss as to why. There was simply no way to fix this. Microsoft said they would look into this and I'm not sure if they ever did. My caring well ran dry way before that. I took the same site and put it on a Solaris box, that was in 2001. I haven't touched it since. It's still running from the time I powered it on, this is about 3 years and 9 months later.
So my experience with Microsoft has been the complete opposite. I'm not sure they've made a positive difference in the computing industry. Even with the low cost of hardware which can be traced back to hardware manufacturers and competition. Microsoft hasn't provided software that changes people lives or allows for general productivity in the work place. Computers are to be aids, tools to real life work. Has Microsoft changed my life or allowed me to be productive? To date, no, they've allowed me to be less productive. To get less work done. I spend more time fiddling with windows machines than trying to work on new interesting things. It annoys me.
In comparison, if I put a unix box up to do something. I walk away, and usually I don't come back. I go on to other things.
Unix/Linux/Open Source allows me to learn to enable productivity. It allows me to get my job done and go home and enjoy other things.
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