This week"s "Windows is cheaper than Linux" story comes to us courtesy of Giga Research, which with the aid of Microsoft funding has produced a study indicating that it is cheaper to create a portal using Windows and Microsoft development tools than using Linux and Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) tools. The study is apparently to be used by Microsoft"s new kinder, gentler and more fact-based GM for platform strategy Martin Taylor in his campaign to convince customers that nine out of ten cats who expressed a preference reckoned that Linux is pooh. And in this campaign, he has the best facts money can buy.
We accept that was unfair, but submit that it was eminently called for. At time of writing the latest study had not yet graced Microsoft"s large and growing pile of proof that Windows is better than Linux (example, sample), and we accept that it"s perfectly possible that under some circumstances Windows development might work out cheaper than Linux development, but Microsoft"s current obsession with "proving" its product is better, over and over again, is both futile and unhealthy.