Open Source or Microsoft
Someone on LinkedIn recently posed the question:
Which of the technology Open Source or Microsoft you prefer? [sic]
Well that was like a red rag to a bull. My response was voted "best answer" by the original poster, so I suppose I must've said something good. So here is my take on Open Source (actually I think he meant Free Software) vs. Microsoft:
You've got to step back and look at the big picture for the reason why I always recommend Microsoft technology. Because Microsoft has a wide range of solutions from operating systems to server applications to business productivity applications, they can ensure that their products integrate and inter-operate in a way that a disparate set of open source solutions will never be able to match. A classic example of this is how the Office applications integrate with the Sharepoint collaboration server. Another example is how Microsoft's customer relationship management software sits inside of Outlook. How Windows Live Messenger collaborates with other applications to provide presence information. How Office Communicator automatically pauses your music playback when there is an incoming phone call. This is what Microsoft calls "better together" and it means that typically, when multiple products are combined, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
I currently use and sell solutions based on open source technology, notably based on the Asterisk PBX because Microsoft doesn't have an equivalent offering - so please note that this is not a technology religion issue for me. I tell my customers that successful IT requires vision and strategy. To achieve that, you need to envision whole solutions and understand how the components integrate and fit together. Comparing individual solutions is only part of the story.
Finally, the standard of support and documentation for open source solutions is often atrocious and often is done as an after-thought or left to the community. Microsoft's documentation is far from perfect but at least it exists and is always up to date. If the answer isn't immediately available, you go to Technet and start searching the Knowledge Base, and if that doesn't work you call support. If you've ever tried to research anything remotely technical concerning an open source solution, you'll know exactly what I mean. If you can find an answer at all, it is often years out of date with respect to the software and heaven help you if you need to speak to someone about a problem. This might be OK for the hobbyist but it is not a situation I want to be in as a business.