Is Microsoft cheaper than Linux?

Another survey comparing Linux to Windows – this one looking at cost of Linux vs. Windows in enterprises – raised a few eyebrows and got some fingers pointing last week.

The Yankee Group, of Boston, surveyed 1,000 network administrators from large enterprises and found that nine out of 10 enterprises said a full switch from Windows to Linux would be prohibitively expensive.

“In large enterprises, a significant Linux deployment or total switch from Windows to Linux, would be three to four times more expensive and take three times as long to deploy as an upgrade from one version of Windows to newer Windows releases,” according to the Yankee Group. 

The survey also found that a majority of enterprise IT professionals found that Linux’s technical merits were considered good, but were not superior to the technology behind Windows, or Unix.

Buzz around the report turned into some serious static when it was reported that the sample of respondents for the survey was taken from a mailing list of an online newsletter called “Win2Knews,” put out by Sunbelt Software, a maker of Windows NT, 2000 and XP development and management tools. It turns out that Sunbelt helped survey sites that were already using Windows, about their Linux plans. Critics also raised questions about how the survey was conducted online, saying that the Web-based survey was open to manipulation.