The debate on Windows vs. Linux is truly an on going one with no end in site. Regardless how you come at this juncture you are usually a UNIX supporter or a customer of Microsoft OS and products who are grateful for products of Microsoft. We will in the following paragraphs try to compare the advantages and disadvantages of these different systems. We will give a brief description on the cost of these products, what kind of market-share these two systems hold, the availability of application software, and the different types of Hardware needed. We will briefly describe the functionality, performance, File System Comparisons, and the Security that comes with these products. On the Personal Computer show in December 2003 John C. Dvorak forecasted a brilliant outlook for Linux. His key points being: it 's free, the applications are getting more mainstream, Open Office is a "remarkable" product, the GUI is pretty much like Windows, it 's high quality, bullet proof and resistant to the thousands of Windows viruses and worms. If he owned a company with thousands of PCs, he would put everyone on Linux. To date the only organizations that we found using hundreds or thousands of Linux based computers are government agencies in countries all over the world. They may be driven by cost and/or security concerns. Some countries also may not like being beholden to a U.S. based company for so much of their software. For a long time because of Microsoft 's aggressive marketing practices, millions of users who have no idea what an operating system is have been using Windows operating systems given to them when they purchased their PCs. Many others are not aware that there are operating systems other than Windows. Many users because of their familiarity with windows seem to think that system is overwhelmingly superior to any other products. When we start breaking down different aspects of these products we can see how it is adaptable to different situation. One
References: Burgess M., (2001). A comparison of Linux and Windows, Edition 2.2. Retrieved on December 20, 2005 from: http://www.michaelhorowitz.com/Linux.vs.Windows.html Kirch, John (1998). Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 versus UNIX. www.lege.com. Retrieved online on January 8, 2006 from http://www.lege.com/unix-nt/#graphs