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[Afro Thunder]

A survey of 90 enterprises finds better total cost of ownership and fewer risks with Microsoft’s streamlined security tools.

Security is one of the chief concerns of IT decision makers. Along with purchase price, interoperability, maintainability and deployment costs, security is a critical factor in determining which platform to deploy across an enterprise or to serve a particular role.

For proprietary and open source software (OSS) alike, administering security updates are a reality in the enterprise and a significant factor in total cost of ownership (TCO). In order to get an accurate picture of how costs associated with patch management figure into the TCO equation, Microsoft recently commissioned Wipro Technologies Ltd., an independent consulting firm, to study the cost of updating Microsoft and open source software in a real-world environment for desktops, servers and database servers.

Wipro surveyed 90 companies in the U.S. and Western Europe with 2,500 to 113,000 employees where both the Windows and open source operating systems were simultaneously being run. When the costs of updating are distributed across the size of the environment and evaluated on a per-asset basis, the study shows Microsoft software to be less expensive to patch than open source equivalents. These findings confirm what many customers are experiencing in their deployment scenarios.

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2005/jun05/06-23WiPro.mspx
http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/default.mspx
D'oh!!

 

[aoi tsuki]

An article from microsoft.com? Someone's not even trying.

 

[Nerevar]

Seems like someone's picked up on the FUD.

A Microsoft-funded survey finds that Microsoft products are better? Who would've thunk it?

 

[MrAngryFace]

All companies are liars. PR = liars. Why we even bother with either side of the fence is just sorta dumb.

 

[ToxicAdam]

I just closed out 10 pop-ups in IE and 30 messenger windows selling me something so I could reply to this: I BELIEVE.

 

[human5892]

This just in: Microsoft Found To Be Awesome, Better Than Everything

Source: Microsoft.com

 

[Phoenix]

Yeah I'm sure a survey commissioned by Microsoft is going to say "Microsoft's security sucks donkey balls - rush to Unix as fast as possible".

 

[MrAngryFace]

Company hate groups ill never understand.

 

[dark10x]

How secure is something like Linux? I mean, really?

Windows is much much more common and it seems to me that anything in that position will become a much more appealing target. Isn't it possible that more holes will be found when something is poked more than something else?

 

[borghe]

How secure is something like Linux? I mean, really?

Windows is much much more common and it seems to me that anything in that position will become a much more appealing target. Isn't it possible that more holes will be found when something is poked more than something else?

the question shouldn't be which is more secure. Hackers will find security flaws in anything given the opportunity. The question is who has the quicker response. MS has already let known exploits go weeks without publishing updates. About the only time Microsoft goes into zero day response mode is when a virus is released exploiting a hole. Otherwise it could go over a month before MS releases the appropriate security fix. This is where MS fails.

I still remember the huge IE exploit that basically relegated MS, on their own website, to offer up a temporary fix of "not using Internet Explorer for web surfing for the time being." Their recommended fix was to not use their product.

Linux I don't think is more secure or anything.. I just think because of the nature of open source and rapid release that Linux (or any other open source OS) is in a much better position to combat exploits as they appear.

And as in interesting aside.. Most exploits are exposed a while before virii turn up taking advantage of them. It is how effective developers can release a fix. In MS' case, it's not that effective.

 

[Hitokage]

There's more to it than that. Linux as a whole expects a strict admin/user privledge seperation, unlike Windows. Just because you've compromised a user account only means you get to fuck somebody's home folder up... if you want to do more you've got to look for another hole.

 

[Nerevar]

yeah, the real issue is that "once a system is compromised, how much damage can be done"? For example, Mac OSX had more "security vulnerabilities" identified over the previous year than Windows did, but the severity of the Mac vulnerabilities didn't allow the attacker complete control over the system (whereas virtually every Windows vulnerability allows the attacker to gain complete control over the system). Linux is even better in that a user would have to somehow gain control of root to completely compromise the box, which is very difficult to do.

 

[God's Hand]

Both OSs are just as unsecure if you're incapable of being a proper sysadmin.

 

[Phoenix]

How secure is something like Linux? I mean, really?

Windows is much much more common and it seems to me that anything in that position will become a much more appealing target. Isn't it possible that more holes will be found when something is poked more than something else?

Your logic is flawed. Most of the websites in the world actually run a version of *nix. That level of popularity should lend it to being exploited very often. This ,however, is not the case. Security isn;t just about someone hammering away until they find an exploit. At the core, Unix systems are just more resiliant to types of attack than Windows.