A Microsoft-commissioned study has found that companies could save up to 28 percent by developing certain programs with Windows instead of Linux, the software company plans to announce on Tuesday. The study, conducted by Giga Research and paid for by Microsoft, compared the likely costs over four years for a dozen medium-size and large businesses that were developing Web-based portals. Giga examined the costs of creating a portal using Microsoft's Windows operating system and related development tools as compared with those of Linux-based systems using Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) tools.

The primary conclusion of the study is that Microsoft offers a substantial cost advantage over J2EE/Linux as a development platform for the applications considered," Giga analysts wrote in the report, which is set for release on Tuesday. Microsoft plans to use the study's findings in its effort to convince customers that Linux is not necessarily a cheaper alternative to Windows, once all costs have been taken into account. Read more at ZdNet.Com