Quote - Very interesting. I guess the "Win PCs are less expensive" legend exists because many people (even IT pros) buy a computer like a can of beer: A smaller number on the price tag means a cheaper product.

Sort of... The reason Windows is more prevalent among smaller businesses is because it doesn't take as much know-how to knock one up and get it running (now securing it properly and keeping it that way? That's another matter...) For smaller businesses with light-duty apps and little-to-no Internet connection from the server? After an initial contracted setup, it can be maintained day-to-day by the company accountant, and then calling Geek Squad when anything really hairy comes up that either a reboot or Windows Update won't fix. For a small business with a small budget (and a much higher tolerance for risk), this makes sense to the business owner. The reason *nix has a strong hold on larger businesses is different - *nix is as efficient as all hell - and not just in how many hours an admin spends on it. A typical server (Dell, HP, whatever) costs the same to the corporation either way (comes with no OS since the corp usually has the requisite site licenses). But - a *nix-based OS doesn't swallow 20-40% of the resources in feeding a GUI that no one but the admin uses, and doesn't require 5-10% more of the CPU cycles to get lost in keeping, say, Norton A/V Corporate scanning and network bandwidth (usually eaten at night) to keep its signatures updated. Open Source *nix kernels can then be re-compiled and trimmed of any modules you don't need or use, freeing up a ton of RAM that you can put to use towards the programs you bought the server to run (up to 50% less overhead than the default kernel uses, depending on what you do with it. So what does all this mean in English? Well, it means that if your department bought an Oracle license, and need servers to run it on, so that it can run a huge-arsed database for a project, it's nice when you can squeeze out as much 'oomph' as you can from the hardware, lowering the overall pricetag and Total Cost of Ownership a bit - helping to bring it in under budget. Thing is, it takes a bit more know-how to run a *nix server farm (pointing-and-clicking one's way through installation, tweaking, or troubleshooting is simply not an option), which means that it's going to cost a little more to hire someone who knows it well enough. Then again, that someone can handle many times the servers, so it still comes out cheaper in the end for large-scale operations. /P