>>You're missing the point.
>>
>>>And I have yet to see any studies which would show that those services are unnecessary or completely free at Microsoft's.
>
>And probably hitting everything else, eh?
>
>I have heard this argument that with Microsoft (always using euphemism "proprietary" to mean "Microsoft") it is cheaper because you pay in advance and then you're all set, no other costs, while with open source it's only seemingly free, but you waste so much time having to train the people, pay for maintenance, etc etc. Somehow it seems to assume that with the "proprietary" there is no maintenance, no training and no services charged later. I am just questioning that assumption.

In my experience, that argument has proven very accurate. The assumption is not true, but the training, purchase, and license fees have generally been much less over time compared with the costs to fight with open source. FWIW I've done several conversions from open source (usually projects that have stalled) to Microsoft/other proprietary software and the clients have been very satisfied with the savings, performance, and managability.