bnitz

Microsoft vs. Open Source: Differences Explained by the Real World

Large enterprise businesses and governments were insensitive to the price and total cost of ownership (TCO) of their office and desktop software even when free alternatives to the monopoly were widely available. This was another artifact of the credit bubble. Sloppy spending was relatively harmless during the years when money grew on trees. When inflation adjusted credit was free, you couldn't afford to waste time shopping for value. And of course governments (state, local, national) were awash with tax revenue and rarely had to answer for their fiscal waste.

Times have changed. Companies and governments can no longer afford to throw money at proprietary software when free alternatives exists. They're now in the same fiscal boat as ramen-noodle eating university students. Microsoft will soon have as much difficulty maintaining high profit margins with enterprise and state governments as it does with students and developing nations.

On Nov 23 10:07 PM Josh Thompson wrote:

> A positive effect of Open source is MSFT almost gives away office
> pro software to markets that would be very hyper-sensitive to price
> like college students. They also give away developer and server software
> to student-developers under their dreamsparks program
> There are hyper-sensitive managers also. Eventually the learning
> curve costs replaces purchase savings, and no peer managers follow
> the self- appointment open source advocate manager. MSFT still is
> the winner.
>