LINUX VERSUS MICROSOFT: REVIEW AND ANALYSIS

COMPUTERS ARE USELESS. THEY CAN ONLY GIVE YOU ANSWERS. Pablo Picasso

PROBLEMS The staff has brought the following issues to the attention of our managers  computers crashing  loss of data  data inconsistencies

RECOMMENDATION  Upgrade the Vista operating system to Windows 7 Professional  Continue our relationship with Microsoft  Take a deeper look into an open source alternative and develop a plan to make a change

DESKTOPS SIDE BY SIDE PCLinuxOS Windows 7 Professional

SERVER OPERATING SYSTEMS Windows Server 2008 Red Hat Linux

OPEN SOURCE PRODUCTIVITY SUITES

MICROSOFT AND OPEN OFFICE Word Works With Wine

MICROSOFT AND LIBRE OFFICE Wine May Cause Wineing

MICROSOFT LICENSING COSTS Software ProviderSoftware OfferingCost MicrosoftOffice 2010$ MicrosoftServer 2008$ MicrosoftClient Access License (CAL) $ MicrosoftExchange Client$ No annual renewal fees for our current Microsoft Products. We have invested $ in Microsoft products since 2010.

OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE LICENSING Software ProviderSoftware OfferingCost PCLinuxOSOperating System$0.00 Libre OfficeProductivity Suite$0.00 Open OfficeProductivity Suite$0.00 Red HatLinux Server Operating System Standard Support Communigate Client$ Both Red Hat and Communigate require annual renewal of license. The estimated annual renewal fees are $983.82

COST COMPARISON WINDOWS 7 PRO AND LINUX  Purchasing Open Source Software Licenses  Initial purchase of license $  Annual renewal fees estimated $  Training for IT Staff begins at $  Purchasing Windows 7 Professional licenses  Licenses are $ each totaling $  No annual renewal fees  No training required

CONCLUSION  Continue relationship with Microsoft  Windows 7 Professional gives us three to five years of service  Licenses total $  Comprehensive Review of Open Source Software  Will licensing costs become a burden  Benefits of training our IT Staff to use Linux