A Merrill Lynch research showed that implementing Linux could save a company millions of dollars during a presentation last week at the Enterprise Linux Forum. The company said they found that rebuilding its information infrastructure using Linux can reduce administration costs dramatically.

Ironically enough, not long ago Microsoft had conducted a research that showed the complete opposite... but you know what they say "There are lies, damned lies, and statistics"

"We are not trying to promote Linux," Snodgrass said. "We are just trying to reduce the cost of ownership."

Using such virtual Linux servers to store files could cut costs dramatically, he said. Keeping their file systems on Windows servers would have cost the company $600,000 in hardware and five times that to pay for the personnel to manage the servers.