Creating and maintaining a custom web-based application
with Java and Linux is almost 40% more expensive than using
Microsoft's software, a Microsoft-commissioned report from
Forrester Research claims.
The report estimated the cost of building custom J2EE (Java 2
Enterprise Edition) and .net applications within large and
medium-sized organisations. Forrester based its cost estimated on
interviews done with IT staff at 12 sample organisations.
The study found a huge gap in software maintenance costs
incurred by the two approaches, largely because of the price
difference between the BEA and Oracle software that Forrester
compared with VisualStudio .net and Microsoft SQL Server.
Software maintenance in a large organisation was estimated at
$160,000 annually for a Linux/J2EE development effort, compared
with just under $46,000 for Microsoft users. In medium-sized
businesses, the costs were $17,775 and $7,158 respectively.
The other major cost difference was in the time companies would
spend on software development, which was increased by about a third
for J2EE/Linux companies.
"If you're doing these mainstream portal-style applications,
you're probably going to have a faster time to market if you're
using the Microsoft tool set," said John Rymer, Forrester
vice-president and co-author of the study.
Forrester estimated that the total cost of developing a custom
Linux/J2EE application and supporting it for three years would be
just over $2.2m. On the Microsoft platform, the cost dropped to
around $1.6m range.
The study examined Linux and J2EE's cost only for web portal
types of applications, Rymer said, and should not be taken as a
blanket statement about Linux.
More sophisticated applications, such as trading systems or
telecommunications management systems, are areas where Linux might
make sense, he said.
"With those sorts of applications, you might get an advantage
out of going with Linux and J2EE," Rymer said. "One of the things
we didn't study was re-hosting. If you've got existing Unix
applications and you're not going to change them, and you just want
to reduce the cost of your platform, then Linux may be a good
choice for you."
Though they would have significantly reduced the software costs
in the study, application development approaches based on free
databases or scripting tools such as PHP (PHP Hypertext Processor)
and MySQL were not considered.
These free tools were not used by the sample organisations
interviewed in the study, five of which were running Linux.
The Forrester report is the second broadside on Linux by
Microsoft in the past week. The company released benchmark numbers
showing that Windows on Intel had better price performance than
Linux on the IBM z900 mainframe when it came to file and web
serving tasks.
After conceding that its previous, more emotionally charged
attacks on Linux had backfired, the company changed tactics and in
July resolved to fight a fact-based campaign against Linux. The
Forrester study is another part of this campaign, according to
Microsoft's general manager of platform strategy, Martin
Taylor.
The Forrester report can be found at
download.microsoft.com/download/7/3/e/73e77129-db34-4c95-b182-ab0b9bd50081/TEICaseStudy.pdf
Robert McMillan writes for IDG News Service