In 2004, the Victorian Government funded a company to research Total Cost of Ownership differences between Linux and open source platforms on the one hand, and Windows and Microsoft platforms on the other. They have now updated this report to accommodate the changes in both platforms, extending the model to increase its relevance and accuracy. The final numbers are now in and available from:
This study covers the average computer-usage requirements for an organisation with 250 users, over a 3 year period. The costing models include expenses such as workstations, servers, networking, IT staff, consultancy fees, Internet Service charges, file, mail and print servers, e-commerce servers, SQL and network infrastructure servers, Internet and Intranet servers, line-of-business software, desktop productivity applications, external training, printers as well as miscellaneous systems costs. They also contrast free-download Linux and paid-for Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
