Microsoft Touts Cost Savings of Vista Over XP

< Is anyone surprised by these findings? >

Microsoft Touts Cost Savings of Vista Over XP
A Microsoft study finds that total cost of ownership for Windows Vista
on mobile PCs is $605 less annually than Windows XP.
Paul Krill, InfoWorld
Wednesday, September 05, 2007 6:00 PM PDT

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,136865/article.html?tk=nl_dnxnws

On Wednesday, Microsoft released details of a study it commissioned
that found that total cost of ownership for Windows Vista on mobile
PCs is US$605 less annually than Windows XP.

According to research conducted by Wipro and GCR Custom Research,
total cost of ownership for Windows XP is $4,407 annually, while
Vista's cost is $3,802. The $4,407 figure was derived from costs of
hardware, software, IT labor, and user costs. Mobile PCs were the
focus because these units will outship desktop systems by 2010, said
Hiroshi Sakakibara, product manager for Windows Product Management at
Microsoft.

Peculiarly, the study actually was based on XP usage and
extrapolations based on Vista capabilities because there was not a
substantial base of Vista clients in use yet when the study was done
early in 2007. Now, the installed base of Vista is 60 million PCs,
Microsoft said.

GCR and Wipro calculated that the Vista upgrade itself saves $251 per
year. These benefits include enhancements in security, desktop
engineering, service desk requirements, user labor, and hardware and
software benefits. Among the improvements noted were in such areas as
network diagnostics, backup and restore, self-healing functions, and
implementation of security policies.

Deploying best practices through Microsoft's Infrastructure
Optimization model adds another $236 in Vista savings, while utilizing
the MDOP (Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack) saves $118 per PC. MDOP
features Microsoft SoftGrid Application Virtualization and the
Microsoft Asset Inventory Service, while Infrastructure Optimization
covers best practices, such as controlling PC configurations. MDOP is
available as part of Microsoft's Software Assurance licensing program.

Reducing vulnerabilities and utilizing security policies presents
savings, noted Bill Barna, principal consultant at Wipro. Security
savings alone were estimated at $55. "If you can reduce the number of
core vulnerabilities, you can basically have the savings flow
throughout the entire security model," Barna said.

The survey featured 541 phones calls to users at 131 XP user
organizations; one IT decision-maker and three end-users were polled
at each user site.

While Microsoft is promoting Vista upgrades, a Free Software
Foundation project called "BadVista," is pushing free software as an
alternative.

"We describe it as a campaign definitely against Vista but chiefly to
promote free software over Vista," said John Sullivan, a campaign
manager at the foundation.

Users should replace "proprietary" systems with a free system like GNU-
Linux, Sullivan said.

.

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