Four out of four experts agree: Linux lowers TCO

Can a company count on Linux to lower the total cost of ownership (TCO) of an enterprise system? Reaction to this question from CIOs and IT managers usually goes something like: "Well, of course it saves money on the bottom line. No sky-high enterprise licensing fees every year. No over-the-top support subscription costs; you can maintain the code in-house. Way fewer security and access issues, keeping the system down time low. No paying for unnecessary bells and whistles on end-user software. No worrying about mandatory upgrades every year and a half."

We talked to independent analysts, developers, and IT company executives. They all pretty much agree on one answer to the question: Yes, generally there are fair to good TCO savings with Linux -- sometimes huge savings. But variables in every organization's mix will determine exactly what that monthly, quarterly, or yearly savings will be.