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Microsoft Businesses The Almighty Buck

Choosing Microsoft Products May Cost 10-40% More 324

Posted by timothy from the more-than-what-is-the-question dept.
securitas writes "Jupiter Research has issued a report that says businesses that choose to stay with Microsoft products may end up paying anywhere from 10%-40% more than if they chose another solution. Software Assurance clients will see the lowest costs and SA-have-nots will see the highest costs. The rationale is that Microsoft's strategy of integrating server and client software, as it has done with the new Windows Server 2003 and Microsoft Office 2003 suite, will force costly upgrades and licenses. Ultimately the goal is to transform Office into a platform instead of a collection of applications. Analyst Joe Wilcox says, "Microsoft argues that increased integration will cut down ongoing costs, maintenance and what not, but whether that will be the case has yet to be seen. The increased acquisition costs, though, are pretty clear." This leaves the door open for other office suites like Corel WordPerfect, Sun StarOffice and OpenOffice. More on costs and integration at Jupiter/Wilcox's Microsoft Monitor Blog."
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Choosing Microsoft Products May Cost 10-40% More More

Choosing Microsoft Products May Cost 10-40% More

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  • No surprises here (Score:4, Insightful)

    by henrygb ( 668225 ) on Sunday October 19, 2003 @04:43PM (#7255790)
    1. Microsoft raises licence prices
    2. Consumers who use Microsoft have to pay more

    The logic is impressive.

  • topic (Score:2, Troll)

    by TedCheshireAcad ( 311748 )
    Choosing Microsoft Products May Cost 10-40% More

    Really. Did they figure that one out themselves or do they have a team of monkeys working on this around the clock?
    • I would bet a team of 1000 monkeys on 1000 calculators figured it out. It's a pretty good team. They did my taxes last year. The IRS didn't penalize me as much as they did last year.
    • Did they figure that one out themselves or do they have a team of monkeys working on this around the clock?

      Normally I wouldn't bring this up but if you're going to put a copyright notice in your sig you should credit where the above came from.

      Kevin Spacey...The Usual Suspects....
      • No....

        Kevin Pollak (Todd Hockney) said it.

        I can put you in Queens on the night of the robbery.
        Really. I live in Queens. Did you figure that out yourself or do you have a team of monkeys working on this around the clock?

  • Information on alternatives. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by dripwipeflush ( 714251 ) on Sunday October 19, 2003 @04:47PM (#7255827)
    FuckMicrosoft.com [fuckmicrosoft.com] has the largest list of Microsoft-alternative software that I have ever seen.

  • Ignores cost of switching to other products. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Shivetya ( 243324 ) on Sunday October 19, 2003 @04:48PM (#7255833) Homepage Journal
    There are other costs associated with software than the upfront cost paid. This article does not account for those costs. Second, for those under SA you don't see the big costs of upgrading.

    Costs that come up when switch.
    Testing (QA) on the new product, mainly to help develop some means of support across the organization; ie standards. You also have to determine the best install of the package and how to deliver it. (is it easy to push?)

    Training. Sure it might LOOK like package X. The key is finding the quirks that generate support calls and find solutions.

    Prior investment. If it works, its even cheaper to not upgrade and keep the old stuff.

    • Costs that come up when switch.

      All true, even though staying on one particular version might not be a viable option sometimes. If you use a suite of packages, perhaps you can maintain interoperability only by keeping them all at similar versions. The manufacturer might force you to upgrade some components to a higher version, by dropping support or stopping the release of security patches for older versions. You may find that by being forced to upgrade a few components, you'll be forced to upgrade every

    • Umm, not too long ago, most server systems ran a UNIX flavor. Migrating from an NT-based OS to a UNIX-like or a UNIX flavor wouldn't cost much in that arena. Plus you can get people with 30+ years of experience in UNIX systems... something MS can't compete with.

      Most of your older support staff should be damned familiar with the systems and pick up something like Solaris, AIX, or Linux pretty damn quickly. Now, this doesn't factor in the .com era MCSEs and IT people your company probably hired when it ma
      • Prior Investment: you're absolutely correct here, except for the fact that MS produces notoriously buggy software that it EOLs after a few years.

        Possibly this means in practice that it gets discontinued just as you are getting on top of its quirks :)
    • Yes, it costs to switch to other products, but that is a perfectly double edged sword. If a new business sets up with Linux desktops running OpenOffice, then it will cost to switch to some MS solution.

      The cost of initially setting up the system is pretty similar for either side really.

      Claims of costs to switch are, largely, irrelevant to a survey about business deciding which system to go with.

      Jedidiah
    • Costs that come up when switch.
      Testing (QA) on the new product, mainly to help develop some means of support across the organization; ie standards. You also have to determine the best install of the package and how to deliver it. (is it easy to push?)

      One thing to remember is that if you "stick with" Microsoft you effectivly have to "switch" every couple of years anyway.

      Training. Sure it might LOOK like package X. The key is finding the quirks that generate support calls and find solutions.

      "It" could

  • so how much saved by staying put? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by romanval ( 556418 ) on Sunday October 19, 2003 @04:49PM (#7255842)
    I mean, if you think of software as only needing x amount of functionality in the first place, with little or no noticable productivity gains seen from upgradeing to the next major version, the question will pop up; Why upgrade at all?
    • Especially since the costs of retraining all users far exceeds the cost of even Microsoft software, especially when you take into account lost productivity, etc. while people are coming up to speed. IIRC, it cost corporations about $2000 PER USER to upgrade from Win95 to Win98 (Sorry I don't have any more recent figures, does anybody else have cost estimates e.g. for moving from Win2K to XP?) Other factors: 1) You probably have to buy new hardware if your hardware is more than 3 years old, because chances a

      • On the other hand, since most of your users have probably lost the licenses that came with their PCs, upgrading will make you less susceptible to a BSA audit.

        Certainly the BSA is evil, sick, and wrong, but...

        Why would you let the users be responsible for keeping track of their own licensing info? We have a FTE who maintains our licensing database. With 5,000 users scattered across seven offices, we need to be certain we're in compliance, and having one guy whose only job is to make sure it works turned o

    • Why upgrade at all?

      Because you can't add new machines and buy the same old programs for them. So if you hire anymore people and want them to have the same software as everyone else, there is really no choice.

      In fact, with OEM licensing (what's included with all new PCs and most common for less than 500 employees), you can't even upgrade the hardware and reuse the OEM copy of windows and office that was purchased previously. So even if you don't add any more people requiring more machines... if you add

  • "means some enterprises may end up paying 10 to 40 percent more" some... may... does not equal "issued a report that says businesses that choose to stay with Microsoft products may end up paying anywhere from 10%-40% more" The research is a little flawed, it makes no comparison of features or the benefits that come with the MS server products (good or bad, the data needs to be there). This is GREAT data for any enterprise that is using it's office suite for word processing... but there are not many of th

  • Shocking!! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Dr. Photo ( 640363 ) on Sunday October 19, 2003 @04:54PM (#7255872) Journal
    I for one am shocked by these figures.

    10-40% is far too low to be plausible. ;)

  • Too bad things won't change quickly. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by El Cubano ( 631386 ) on Sunday October 19, 2003 @04:55PM (#7255875)

    This leaves the door open for other office suites like Corel WordPerfect, Sun StarOffice and OpenOffice.

    IIRC, MS Office costs anywhere from 2 or 3 times, in the case of WP, to 00 (that should be an infinity, but two zeros side by side is the best I could do) times, in the case of OOo, as much as MS Office. To my recollection, MS Office has always cost lots more than its competitors, but plenty of people still buy it and plenty of people frown at the idea of a "work-alike" or whatever you want to call it. As much as I would like to see Corel, Sun and OOo eat MS's lunch on the office suite (and I think we are approaching that) there is lots of inertia to overcome.

    • Re:Too bad things won't change quickly. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by NanoGator ( 522640 ) on Sunday October 19, 2003 @05:15PM (#7255981) Homepage Journal
      " To my recollection, MS Office has always cost lots more than its competitors,"

      To be fair, I have yet to see a mail client that does all the stuff that Outlook does. I agree that you have your work-alike people (who probably aren't aware of the extra stuff Outlook can do), but there are also the people who are buying the right tool for the job.
      • To be fair, I have yet to see a mail client that does all the stuff that Outlook does.

        Yes, it'll enable you to run pretty much any e-mail virus without any compatibility problems. Non of the alternatives come even close. :)

        • "Yes, it'll enable you to run pretty much any e-mail virus without any compatibility problems. Non of the alternatives come even close. :) "

          Maybe. Though I cannot attest to that as that hasn't happened to me in the 3 years I've used it. (I don't use its default settings tho, so you can have that.)

  • Integration cuts costs? (Score:5, Funny)

    by oogoliegoogolie ( 635356 ) on Sunday October 19, 2003 @04:59PM (#7255894)
    "Microsoft argues that increased integration will cut down ongoing costs, maintenance and what not, but whether that will be the case has yet to be seen...

    Yeah, like how integration of IE into windows OS has cut down on maintenance costs.
    • Obviously, you understood M$ -- integration cuts down on Microsoft's maintenance costs. They never said anything about passing those savings on to the consumer!
  • "Microsoft argues that increased integration will cut down ongoing costs, maintenance and what not, but whether that will be the case has yet to be seen. The increased acquisition costs, though, are pretty clear."

    Perhaps microsoft needs to usurp & change another dictionary word,. like the apparent change of acquisition from a word meaning to aquire ,. as in implied ownership.

    To a new usage defined closer to "toll, some thing paid each and every time used."

    Last time I checked, if you purchased 100 co

  • 10-40% higher than PREVIOUS MS SOLUTIONS (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mcc ( 14761 ) <amcclure@purdue.edu> on Sunday October 19, 2003 @05:07PM (#7255947) Homepage
    If you look at the actual article, they note that "Wilcox estimates that firms taking Microsoft up on its offer to integrate back-end processes with front-end client software on the desktop may run up tabs 10 to 40 percent higher than with earlier editions of Microsoft's products, depending on the server licenses and client access licenses (CALs) they purchase. "

    That is all. This is not a comparison against Linux, Macintosh or whatever competing Office suites may be left. This is simply an alalysis of how Microsoft's vendor lock-in--- umm, i mean, how the vertical integration of Microsoft's products affects the amount that companies will pay to use those products.

    Isn't it grand how monopolies lower prices for consumers because they're more Efficient? Ahhh.

  • Departmental Savings (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ljavelin ( 41345 ) on Sunday October 19, 2003 @05:24PM (#7256027)
    I can't speak for my entire organization, but I can speak for my department of 20 people.

    We've made the switch away from Microsoft. About 2/3 of us use RH9; the other 1/3rd use Mac OS X. I'm one of the linux guys.

    In a nutshell, we've managed (with some pain) to completely unload Microsoft. Pretty good, eh?

    Our primary Office products are Open Office and Mozilla (for Web & Email).

    Needless to say, we are an IT-centric organization, so we can take care of ourselves pretty well. In addition, our organization never standardized on the "viral" Microsoft practices, namely "MS-Exchange".

    The savings? Well, for starters, there is the fee for Microsoft Office for 20 people. Plus we were able to get rid of our IT support guy (he was a contractor - we paid about $50k/year for his services - VERY PART TIME).

    That's all pretty substantial $$$ - and it's money that flows right out the door.

    The downside? Well, none really. It was difficult at first - we had a bunch of older docs in Visio and PPT 2000 format and stuff like that.

    Now we have one PC in the office just for Windows.

    It's kind like the old days when you had an unused microfiche machine in the back room.
    • But, what about all the money you saved by not paying overtime to fight all the latest worms/virii, and savings by not losing productivity due to said worms bringing down your exchange server? Come on, if you're going to point out the advantages, point out ALL the advantages!
    • Sounds just like our office.

      We have one Windows PC which doesn't get used that much. Everybody else is using Redhat or Gentoo on their workstations.

      We don't do much office stuff, but when we do we use Open Office, even on the windows box.
  • Integrating Internet Explorer into Windows is monopolistic.

    Integrating Media Player into Windows is monopolistic.

    and integrating MS Office into Windows errr... isn't?

  • RTA, it compares MS to MS (Score:5, Informative)

    by rockhome ( 97505 ) on Sunday October 19, 2003 @06:26PM (#7256337) Journal
    The article is not about the cost difference between say Office and Open Office, but between the current pricing and software structure versus the future.

    It would be ludicrous to use this articele as a vehicle to prove the viability of Star Office, say, versus Office. I find the description of this article very misleading. Any new generation/paradigm(is it a paradigm? I'll check Kuhn) can result in a rise in total cost of acquisition or even ownership.

    This applies to any software, free or not. If PHP or HTTP were radically changed, would it not require significant investment to reintegrate old applications? IPv6, while necessary in the lon run will undoubetedly cause an initial cost of migration.

    What are the costs of migrating from office to Open Office? What are the costs of then intregrating Open Office into the organization as tool for scheduling, data sharing, etc.?
  • Problem is for many large companies that have been on the MOLP train for years, it would be really hard for them to seek alternatives.

    Its part of the plan, force people into staying, and funding, microsoft.
  • I don't have the will to read the thing, but whats the point of a study to find out something may be something? Then in the little blurb used for the headline it is acknowledged that the switch from "collection of applications" to "platform" could possibly make up the cost. I'm not reading anything that can at best come to the conclusion something possibly could happen. Watch this:

    Linux may cost more to use than Windows.
    Windows may cost more to use than Mac.
    Using MS Office may make your PC explode.
  • living with the choice costs!
  • That's all?

  • Most corporate IT environments need to embrace real document management systems, not, try and build uber applications instead.

    I work at a firm whose essential strategy is try to and replace the work product of financial types in excel with collections of applications dedicated to different parts of the process. As a result of this, the business has become stagnated and locked into a process that exists largely because of the weight of money that went to create it, not because it has ever really been quest

  • Manipulating people through footnotes... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by sheldon ( 2322 ) on Sunday October 19, 2003 @10:23PM (#7257571)
    If anybody needs a clear demonstration of how one can manipulate people by using facts and footnotes, this article is it. Forget about reading Al Franken's book about the right-wing media, this lesson has been adopted all journalists.

    Basically the argument boils down to this...

    If you look at Office 2003 and see all the wonderful features touted, you may have to pay 10-40% more than previous Office products to take full advantage of all the features touted.

    Pay careful attention to that phrase "features touted", as that's the key of this argument. The fact is you don't have to pay for integration if you don't want to use the features. You can continue to use Office with all the existing features it's ever had in a non-integrated fashion and paying about the same.

    In fact this guy isn't even arguing that the competition offers the same features for less. They don't. They just assume you don't want them.

    So somehow Microsoft is being dishonest in touting features of Office because they might involve integrating with extra server products.

    Uhh, whatever.

    I'm intelligent, I can look at products from multiple vendors, find out the system requirements to make the product perform the features they claim, and then add up the total cost.

    This article is more manipulative and deceptive than Microsoft's marketing group.

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