1. No software licensing fees

Yes, you can pay for Linux but you really don't have to. Most of the commercial distributions of Linux are available for free. The truth is that running Open Source systems costs you less than Windows. Even a medium sized enterprise can save hundreds of thousands of pounds every year by not having to pay for software licensing.

2. Keeping pace with change

The proprietary software licence model assumes that the IT systems on which it runs is "fixed" in terms of its scale, and that the organisation using the software has relatively stable usage of the software. But virtualisation technologies used in networking and advances in the underlying hardware platforms have introduced a level of usage elasticity that make these licensing models redundant.

Only the Open Source software model - where licensing fees have given way to high-quality, commercial support - can keep pace with new advances in IT infrastructure and deliver tangible business benefits to the customer.

3. Longer hardware lifecycles

The concept of planned obsolescence is used by PC vendors to push up their profits. It isn't that the hardware wears out, it's just that older equipment can no longer handle the demands put on it by new, fatter versions of Windows.

Open Source software is uniquely engineered to run fast on low specification hardware. Software kernels can be tailored specifically for the hardware you run meaning that you only build in the drivers you need. The result is leaner architectures running on lower grade hardware without compromising on performance.

Perfectly good hardware stays out of the landfill site for longer and you decide when to 'upgrade' not the vendor.

4. Avoid Active Directory

It's expensive, bulky and complicated to deploy. Active Directory is also the 'end game' in terms of lock-in for your enterprise. Open Source alternatives such as OpenLDAP are robust, scalable and can be deployed across mixed environments including Windows, Linux and proprietary UNIX systems.

5. More reliable

How often does your e-mail go down? Have your mission critical CRM systems ever ground to a halt? How often has your office been crippled by viruses?

The truth is that most IT staff have come to accept the poor reliability and performance of Windows. Just reboot the machine and pray that fixes it, right?

The foundation of the business case for Open Source is high reliability and virus protection. Open Source software is 'peer-reviewed software'. It's been scrutinised by thousands of developers around the world - a resource pool that not even the largest software monopoly can afford. The result is industrial-strength, open systems that just don't crash.

6. Go fast

Independent tests have shown that Samba running on a file and print server is twice as fast as Windows 2003 Server whilst still enabling end users to use Windows desktops. Similarly, recent performance benchmarking of OpenLDAP has shown it to be 80% faster than its equivalent Microsoft technology, Active Directory.

This means that Samba and OpenLDAP, like many other enterprise-class Open Source technologies, process your mission-critical data faster and cheaper.

7. Tighten your security

Social Engineering

Running executables (e.g. files that end in .exe) is too easy in Windows. Users who get an email with a subject line like "Check out this wicked screensaver!" and an .exe attachment, too often click on it without thinking first. And that's enough for a worm to take over your Windows system.

This sort of social engineering requires far more steps and far greater effort on the part of the Open Source user. Due to the strong separation between normal users and the privileged root user, Open Source users have to be running as root to really do any damage to the system.

Yes, running as root (or Administrator) is now more common in the Windows world. But even with Windows XP the first named user is automatically made an administrator, with the power to do anything he wants to the computer.

Since Open Source users are taught from the beginning never run as root it's obvious the likelihood of email-driven viruses and worms lessens on those platforms.

Software Design

Open Source software runs on many architectures, not just Intel, and there are many different Open Source platforms, many packaging systems, and many shells. For example, Open Source mail clients and address books are far from standardized e.g. KMail, Mozilla Mail, Evolution and many more.

In the Windows world Microsoft's email programs - Outlook and Outlook Express - dominate. This means that a virus writer can target his Windows virus, secure in the knowledge that millions of systems have the same vulnerability.

Microsoft also continually links together its software, often not for technical reasons, but instead for marketing or business development reasons. For instance, Outlook Express and Outlook both use the vulnerable Internet Explorer browser to view HTML-based emails. As a result, a hole in IE affects Outlook Express.

Open Source email readers don't indulge in such behaviour, with two exceptions: Mozilla Mail uses the Gecko engine that powers Mozilla to view HTML-based email, while KMail relies on the KHTML engine that the Konqueror browser uses. Fortunately, both Mozilla and the KDE Project have excellent records when it comes to security.

8. More interoperable

By not being tied into a single vendor you still have the freedom to give end users the best tools for the job. Open Source networking solutions, such as Samba, have support the widest range of protocols including Windows:

• The accounts team can keep their Windows machines to run their accounting package.
• The marketing team still get to do their desktop publishing on Macs.
• IT staff have the flexibility to provide support using Windows, Linux and Solaris.

9. Protect your technology investment

Being tied to one single technology stack often gives IT decision-makers the confidence that their technology investment will be supported in the long-term. But should it?

Using proprietary software means that your vendor's corporate decision-making can end the future of your mission-critical applications overnight. Closed source code means there's simply nobody to carry on its development or support.

Enterprise-class Open Source technologies will never put you in this position. Open Source means your technology choices are future-proofed - active projects will always be have experts on hand to support your deployment.

10. You're not a prisoner

Beyond all the savings, reliability, and security gains, the Open Source model has one overwhelming advantage for the software customer: you're not a prisoner.

If you read the license (known as the EULA) that comes with your copy of Windows XP/Vista closely you will find that, whilst you might own your hardware, the software running on it belongs to Microsoft.

Using Open Source means you're no longer at the mercy of unfixed bugs, shackled to every 'strategic' upgrade decision Microsoft makes and are no longer subject to their exorbitant support fees.