As the flagship product of Microsoft , Windows benefits from more than two decades of intense, heavily funded development work. Microsoft programmers have incorporated feedback from countless users in both the server and desktop sectors. To the general public, the term "Windows" is synonymous with "computer."

Linux, although it has been in existence for years, has only begun its climb up the enterprise-computing chain in the last two to four years. It is little known by the general public. The Linux kernel has yet to make it to version 3.0.

Yet the upstart Linux invokes comparisons to Windows because of its growth rate. Research firm IDC identifies the "Lintel" format, or Intel -based servers running Linux, as the faster-growing server segment. Sun has launched its Mad Hatter Linux desktop push, and Wal-Mart has begun selling ultra-cheap Linux-based PCs.

Governments around the world -- including the U.S. -- have started to make Linux their OS of choice.

Still, can this young operating system compete with Windows technologically? Is it ready to go head to head with Microsoft's well-developed OS?

The Benefit of Maturity

In deciding whether Windows or Linux is better, from a tech perspective, the relative maturity of Windows and Linux carries a lot of weight. Because Windows has had such a longer product life cycle, "Windows is more than just Windows," Meta Group analyst Thomas Murphy told NewsFactor.

"The superiority of Microsoft is that it is a cohesive product group," he explained. Corporate managers can make a commitment to Windows and feel assured that all of their company's software needs are met with one compatible package.

"Windows has a far greater, far deeper list of packaged application software available," IDC analyst Dan Kusnetsky told NewsFactor.

Windows, in addition to having .NET built in, offers a cohesive set of other services -- like Exchange and ADO and SQL Server, Murphy noted. "Especially if you look at these latest releases, the [Microsoft] product groups have coordinated together to make it easier to manage all those pieces."

Choosing Linux forces a CIO to combine a patchwork of vendor offerings, Murphy explained. "Red Hat gives me the base operating system," he noted, but "whose management tools am I going to use? And what am I going to do about directory? And how are we going to do e-mail?"

Security

But the number of packaged applications an OS offers takes a back seat to the issue of whether the OS's security features can protect an enterprise. While the issue of which OS is safer has never been conclusively decided, adherents on both sides claim superiority, Forrester analyst Michael Rasmussen told NewsFactor. (continued...)

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