Microsoft and the open source community started a war of words last
week about the relative value of their products - and corporate IT
users could be the winners.
Microsoft launched its "Get the Facts" campaign by presenting
reports that showed its software was cheaper and more functional
than open source alternatives.
Separately, consultant Eddie Bleasdale of netproject published a
white paper on Beaumont Hospital which showed how an open source
model could offer a lower total cost of ownership over a five-year
period.
Simon Edwards, research analyst at Butler Group, said that until
the arrival of Linux many users did not have a viable alternative
to Windows. "This competition is healthy and will improve product
quality," he said.
Edwards said the debate would help users by providing more
information on the cost breakdown of Windows against open source
software. It was important for the industry to engage users in a
public debate on the merits of the two approaches. "People need to
drive value from their platform," he said.
Bleasdale, who attended the Microsoft launch event, said, "I
welcome the Microsoft campaign as it allows a debate to take place
between the Microsoft camp and the open source camp." He criticised
Microsoft's approach as being "Windows-only" and failing to account
for the heterogeneous environments run by most users.
One of the hotly contested areas is desktop productivity, with
Openoffice the open source alternative to Microsoft Office. Nick
McGrath, head of platform strategy at Microsoft UK, warned that
users would face incompatibilities moving documents between the two
packages.
He said, "In Openoffice 1.2, complex [Excel] spreadsheets and
Powerpoint slides do not convert well." He also said that users
would experience formatting problems when moving from Microsoft
Office to Openoffice.
McGrath urged users to consider the additional costs they could
incur in a heterogeneous environment. He said, "To connect to
Exchange you require a Windows client access licence, which is
included in Windows XP Professional and Windows 2003." He said
Linux users would have to pay extra for this licence.
Meanwhile, open source advocate netproject has been awarded a
research and development grant by the Department of Trade &
Industry to develop tools to manage the large-scale deployment of
Linux workstations.
The company is working with Beaumont Hospital in Dublin to roll out
Linux across 1,000 workstations. In a white paper looking at the
potential savings Beaumont Hospital could make by moving to open
source, netproject said the one-off savings of open source software
over proprietary alternatives were about £4.6m. Over a five-year
period, it estimated savings of £8.4m.