W2000 servers cheaper to run than Unix - Is It TRUE ??????

[Dusan Rupnik]

http://www.vnunet.com/News/1130760


W2000 servers cheaper to run than Unix

By Jonathan Collins in New York [09-04-2002]
Wintel back-office cuts cost, according to survey
A new survey has found that Intel-based servers running Windows 2000 and trusted with key back-office applications are significantly cheaper than Unix servers. 
The cost of running back-office servers on Windows and Intel technology is around half that of Unix servers, a new report has found. 

According to the survey of US medium and large sized enterprises, over a three-year ownership period, companies can expect to see 46 per cent lower costs associated with acquiring, maintaining and running a Windows 2000 server over a Unix/Risc machine. 

"We expected there to be a cost advantage, but not this high," said Thomas Manter, research director at Aberdeen Group and author of the report.

According to the survey, buying an Intel based server running Windows 2000 costs around $1.3m less than its Unix equivalent. Companies surveyed showed the average cost advantage across a mix of two-way and four-way servers to be 58 per cent in favour of the Windows machines. 

But for two-way servers alone, which represented 75 per cent of the total server population, this cost advantage grew to 70 per cent due to the large difference in prices between Windows/Intel and Unix/Risc. 

While the initial purchase prices differed, it was the cost of administering the systems that really separated the two, according to Aberdeen. Over three years, the Windows 2000 machines cost around $2.4m less to operate than their Unix alternatives.

Much of that came from the cost of employing support staff. "We found the average salary was far lower for support staff with Windows skills compared with Unix specialists," said Manter. 

In addition, Aberdeen pointed out that, with more off-the-shelf applications available for the Windows 2000 platform, there was lower cost in deploying and maintaining applications compared with the in-house and bespoke developments more common on Unix servers. 

This meant that the Windows 2000 platform required fewer support staff and that the bulk of the maintenance work could be carried out by less skilled and less specialised staff.

With IT departments looking to get more from their investments, Manter believed that the Intel/Windows 2000 option will be come increasingly popular. 

"As IT managers become aware of these kinds of savings we expect to see significant growth in Windows 2000 deployment in the enterprise back-office," he said. 

The growth would be from a still very small base. The survey found that around 95 per cent of the companies that took part in the survey were running their back-end applications on Unix machines.