From: Adam Flinton 

2 points of note:

1) > "We know that Linux is not for everything," he said.
"But there are
not many applications that require more than Linux can give us."

Good enough.....

2) "In fact, Snodgrass found that, while the software licensing costs
of Windows was higher than Linux, the highest cost was in managing
traditional Windows infrastructure.

  "It's the people that cost the most," he said. "

Blows a big hole in the pro-Windows argument.

Adam


Mike '/m' wrote:
> http://news.com.com/2100-1016_3-1014287.html?tag=fd_top
>
> ===
> SANTA CLARA, Calif.--Merrill Lynch research shows that deploying Linux
> internally that could save the company millions of dollars, an executive
> at the investment banker said.
>
> During a presentation Friday at the Enterprise Linux Forum, Mark
> Snodgrass, vice president of Merrill Lynch's in-house technology
> provider, the Global Technology & Services group, said that the company
> has found that re-architecting its information infrastructure using Linux
> can reduce administration costs dramatically.
>
> In fact, Snodgrass found that, while the software licensing costs of
> Windows was higher than Linux, the highest cost was in managing
> traditional Windows infrastructure.
>
> "It's the people that cost the most," he said.
>
> Merrill Lynch's new plans for its information infrastructure call for
> running much of its Linux applications not on their own physical machines
> but in virtual machines running on high-end servers. Such a scheme
> simplifies management and allows for rapid deployment of new Linux
> "servers" by activating a copy of a stored pre-configured image in as
> little as 2 minutes 14 seconds.
>
> "We are not trying to promote Linux," Snodgrass said.
"We are just trying
> to reduce the cost of ownership."
>
> Using such virtual Linux servers to store files could cut costs
> dramatically, he said. Keping their file systems on Windows servers would
> have cost the company $600,000 in hardware and five times that to pay for
> the personnel to manage the servers.
>
> "We know that Linux is not for everything," he said.
"But there are not
> many applications that require more than Linux can give us."
>
> Snodgrass's group proposed replacing the company's Microsoft Exchange
> servers with a Linux-based solution that would have all the same
> collaboration features and have a cost savings of 70 percent to 80
> percent. However, for other reasons that Snodgrass wouldn't discuss, the
> company's executives decided to stick with Exchange but outsource the
> management of the groupware to save money.
>
> Not everyone agrees that Linux saves money, however. Last year, market
> researcher IDC released a report, heralded by Microsoft, that indicated
> that the five-year cost of ownership for four out of five applications
> would be lower if Microsoft software was used. The sole Linux winner was
> Web server software, according to the report.
>
> Snodgrass said he wasn't familiar with the study, but his own data
> indicated that running virtual Linux servers saves a lot of money
> compared with running those same services under Windows.
>
> "We've done our numbers, and we are a bank, so we know our
numbers," he
> said.
>
> Other companies apparently have crunched the numbers and come to the same
> conclusion. ...
> ===
>
>
> No wonder Ballmer is dumping his MSFT holdings, and telling the Microsoft
> employees that corporations don't want Microsoft technology.
>
>   /m

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