[Sussex] microshaft at it again

[Geoff Teale]

I haven't seen the ads that Gareth is talking about but, a post to FSF
mailing list from a couple of months back noted that the Wall Street
Journal pointed out the following about the ads microsoft had been
running in the US press:

>When Microsoft calculates TCO for linux as a migration path in it's
>current campaign they make the following assumptions:
>
>* You have to replace all your hardware.
>* You have to sack all your IT staff and replace them with a larger
>team experienced UNIX staff at a 20% wage hike (this includes
>developers to fix all the "10% extra bugs and security flaws" you find
in Linux).
>*You will experience 15% downtime, because Linux has more bugs and
>security flaws - being written by ammeters. 
>* You have to retrain all your non-technical staff ( fair enough, but
>this training includes learning shell programming and basic system
>administration according to Microsoft).
>* They include a license charge for running VMWare and Windows on a
>number of machines on the basis that you will need to run all your old
>bespoke apps and office software.
>* They include a service level agreement with a major Linux vendor.
>
>When they calculate the windows TCO they:
>
>* Assume that only 10% of hardware needs to be replaced.
>* Assume that there is no need for a change in technical staff and only
>a small charge for "upgrade training". 
>* They assume that non-technical staff will require no training.
>* They assume that you do not have a service agreement with any
>organisation.
>

-- 
Geoff Teale
Cmed Technology <gteale at cmedltd.com>
Free Software Foundation <tealeg at members.fsf.org>