But Microsoft Says Commercial Software Cheaper
Last
week, we discussed whether open source can support one of the tenets of
capitalism: profit. One guru, Stuart Cohen, argued that the only way to make
money on open source is to sell support -- but the software is so darn good,
it doesn't need much support.
Meanwhile, IBM is arguing that its new open source desktop is just the ticket
for this bad economy. Imagine my surprise when Microsoft publicized that one
of its customers claims open source is the one that chews up precious support
dollars. That's why Speedy Hire (the U.K. equivalent of Rent-a-Center), dumped
open source and paid for Office, SQL Server and Dynamics AX instead. The
company claims the move will save about a million-and-half dollars over the
next half-decade.
The rationale is pretty compelling. Open source may be cheap, but the little
things -- different UI elements and incompatibilities -- are what rack up so
many help desk dollars. Make sense? If so (or if not), please reply to [email protected].
Posted by Doug Barney on December 08, 2008 at 11:53 AM