Interesting.

By the 1999 date it looks like you would have had very few or no NT5
servers.  Having worked with both NT4 and NT5 I can tell you that the
product is much improved in NT5.  I wouldn't be surprised if MS pushed the
break-even point four times higher or more.  That would mean Windows 2000
would be cost effective in workgroups of 40 to 50 people.

Did you look at OS/400?  I tend to think of OS/400 as the _other_ business
friendly operating system.



> -----Original Message-----
> From: plug-discuss-admin@lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us
> [mailto:plug-discuss-admin@lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us]On Behalf Of George
> Toft
> Sent: Wednesday, May 30, 2001 6:55 AM
> To: plug-discuss@lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us
> Subject: Re: Insurer Considers Microsoft NT High-Risk
>
>
> "Cost" is very tricky.  My thesis was on the Total Cost of Ownership
> for Workgroup Servers, and the O/S cost is irrelevant.  Labor costs
> for NT are less than Unix/Linux, but downtime costs (also known as
> opportunity costs) are much higher for NT, especially as workgroup
> size increases.
>
> For very small workgroups, NT is a good choice for TCO.  You start
> losing money with NT after the workgroup exceeds about 10-12 people
> (based on 1999 prices).
>
> George