A Microsoft-commissioned report detailed this week found that students in Europe were more satisfied with Microsoft products than with open source software. But is the study just another counter-offensive against open source by Microsoft?After all, Microsoft most recently claimed that open source and Linux violate 235 Microsoft patents.Microsoft representatives denied any pre-conditioned bias in the report, saying vendor-commissioned studies are commonplace. The report was independently audited by a professor of the Insead Business School in Paris, said Lynn Moates, marketing and communications director for the Microsoft Education Solutions Group. The study addresses the speculation on whether open source is a better bet for education, Moates said. “We thought it was appropriate to conduct some facts-based research on the reality of it,” Moates said. The Wipro Technologies report compared Microsoft and open source platforms in 73 schools in six European countries: France, Italy, Poland, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom . It found that user satisfaction with Microsoft software is high among both students and teachers, who said Microsoft products were easier to use, richer in functionality, better integrated and better suited to supporting educational activities than open source alternatives.Among other things, the study found that Microsoft solutions provide the benefits of lower ongoing support costs, fewer failures and less time needed for troubleshooting, even though open source software has no licensing fees. “A key finding was that student and teacher satisfaction with Microsoft applications is higher than with open source applications,” Moates said. Still, it is easy to be leery of such a study coming from Microsoft. While Microsoft has made some open source moves, such as setting up its CodePlex Web site for hosting of open source projects, the company by and large is seen as an opponent of open source. And it’s not hard to see why people would feel that way, particularly given the recent patents issue. The full report can be found on Microsoft’s own Web site here. Microsoft would not comment on how much the study cost. Software Development