Good post Savio. I haven't checked your #'s but I'll trust you. ;-)

There are lots of detailed TCO/ROI analyses this type of discussion can get bogged down on, but I agree with your point that "OSS doesn't have to compete on price...let's move past that myth."

The fact is that people deploying enterprise software are looking for strong Value.

Red Hat consistently states that it competes on Value:
http://www.redhat.com/value_shows/

The fact that Red Hat has been #1 in delivering Value for the past 4 years speaks to this:
http://www.redhat.com/promo/vendor/

Anyhow, enough infomercial. Point made.

The one thing that is hard to reflect in your analysis is that commercial support customers (e.g. not one guy in a garage) almost never pay the sticker price - and Linux is often discounted far lower than Windows. I think the last figures I saw were that on average a Linux seat costs about $35-50 on average. Now enterprise customers get a discount on Windows in their ELA, but try negotiating and I doubt you'll never pay more for Linux.

The other issue is the desktop "stack" - while Windows appears cheaper in your analysis, add in Office (sure you could use OpenOffice, but how many really do).

One element of price, outside of the box price for the software, is the price of the forced hardware upgrades to handle the new OS. Further, the OS by itself isn't the only cost. You left out the cost of the office productivity application. It's a different item, agreed, and you can run Open Office on Windows. But every piece that is used in the standard corporate machine configuration needs to be considered. How about the price of re-designing your application because it won't work on the older version. (One reason there is so much of a push to save XP.)

Another factor I find is the quality of support and the time-to-resolution.

The times I've contacted Microsoft (and other non-OSS) support, after sitting in the call-queue for a lengthy period of time, I spar my way through the tier-1 tech's script. Occasionally in barely understandable English. I then get passed to a tier-2 tech only to repeat half the stuff I went through with the tier-1 tech. Sometimes I make it to a tier-3 tech with similar effect.

I've been told that things "function as designed" when they're clearly broken. I've been told that I'll get a callback (or reply email) on an issue, only to hear nothing. Sometimes I learn that it's a known issue, but there's nothing I can do about it if a fix hasn't been released.

On the otherhand, in just about every instance of contacting support for OSS (whether mailing lists, newsgroups, IRC, or posting on a forum), I generally get

-a fast response...sometimes from the core developer(s) responsible for application, and sometimes multiple responses with potential resolutions

-in mostly understandable English

-if it's a known/reproducable issue, I can often get patches or just get the latest version from a public code repository

-because I've got the source code, if all else fails, the list can direct me to where the problem may lie in the code and I can fix the problem myself.

-unless I actually set up a support contract, the quality support I receive comes for free from the people who actually care about their application

I'll take OSS support over non-OSS support any day.

-Tim

Two points.

Red Hat Desktop is $80/year. Since Vista is a desktop OS, you should compare with Red Hat Desktop.
https://www.redhat.com/apps/store/desktop/

You are not counting the integration and support from Red Hat covers many many packages that are not included with Vista Ultimate.

The one thing that I don't see accounted for is the cost of constantly having to combat new viruses in windows and thier total lack of responsibility for thier standard loopholes for hackers. as far as I know those other os's aren't attacked nearly as often, nor do they have the built in easy access for anyone that has half a brain to get into your computer.

Do you really think it's reasonable or accurate to compare per-incident support pricing to the price for a year of support for an unlimited number of incidents (albeit during restricted hours)? This seems to be something of an apples-to-oranges comparison, even ignoring the quality of support provided.

Does MS offer comparable full-year unlimited-incidents plans? Do RH and Canonical offer comparable per-incident plans?