From the May 4, 1998 Issue of Computerworld..
"..As part of a massive enterprise resource planning rollout, Howmedica, Inc. a subsidiary of Pfizer, Inc. in Rutherford, N.J. evaluated its Windows NT systems last year before it decided to go with Unix systems from Sun Microsystems, Inc. The decision was made largely because Unix systems were more scalable, Said Stuart Davie, Howmedica's vice president of Information Technology. "Early indications were that NT would be a lot cheaper...but in the end, the difference wasn't significant" in terms of overall cost, Davie said."
some other choice lines from the article:
..In fact, when combined with administrative and maintenance costs, NT systems may may end up costing more to own than Unix systems' users and analysts said.
a quote from Greyhound bus lines .... "Unix is almost 30% cheaper" than NT for ongoing maintenance, support and losses associated with network downtime.
"much of the hardware cost comes from constantly having to add more processors or throw more servers to handle application scalability issues"
"another significant cost in some environments is the need to have redundant Windows NT systems backing each other up to ensure high-application availability"
"There is a misperception that just because NT is a shrink-wrapped product, it is somehow cheaper" than Unix, said Tom Yager a network operating system team leader at Sprint.
"..said a systems analyst at a utility in Washington, who requested anonymity. Unix systems dont crash as often, so fewer backup systems are needed. " |
