Something else I just ran into. Well, it came to my email inbox from a Windows Magazine newsletter:

* AND YOU THOUGHT WINDOWS SUPPORT STINKS
And speaking of Red Hat, Windows Server users might be surprised to discover just how briefly Red Hat supports its products. The company will support Red Hat Linux 8.0, which is being replaced this week by version 9.0, and all 7.1 and newer versions of the product through the end of this year only; support for versions 6.2 and 7.0 end on March 31. Going forward, the company will support its products for just 1 year. Although I understand that Linux is evolving quickly, this policy seems a bit misguided, especially when you consider that Microsoft has extended support for its enterprise products twice in recent days. Is Red Hat essentially handing Microsoft yet another differentiator for customers to consider when comparing Windows and Linux? I think so.



I guess this falls into the "beating a dead horse" category, but if you factor admin time into the equation, you will potentially spend more hours in support with a Linux. If your hours are billable (eg you are a contractor or consulting place), then you might want to go with Windows, but if your time is not billable and/or your IT group is considered to be a "budget sinkhole", then a Linux will always look cheaper.

I worked at a major university/hospital once upon a time, and no matter what we did, our department charged-back our time to other departments at $55/hr. On any project, you'd have me + a junior developer + my manager, which is way more than $55/hr in time, but it was left at that. Needless to say, there was/is a lot of Linux there. :)