Linux a greener alternative to a forced Vista move?

If you read my blog yesterday, you noticed my entry about Microsoft’s move to retire XP and effectively force Windows shops into a wasteful migration to Vista.

I spelled out a couple of scenarios:

1. Stick with XP and hope you can gather the licenses you need to run your business as it grows, all the while waiting for a better version of Windows to emerge down the road.

2. Cave in and adopt Vista, either taking a headache-inducing piecemeal approach or an all-out expensive (and again, wasteful) mass migration.

Lo, there’s another alternative, one that has been pointed out by a some respondents to my previous post: Move to Linux.

For example, this comes from Gostak:

“I am suggesting VMware on Linux with your current crop of XP licenses. Mission-critical stuff that must run on XP is available, meanwhile you can be working on migrating everything to a native Linux environment that will not toss you on your keister in a few years. Further, the one big thing coming down the pike, 64-bit computing, is fully supported with Linux, so you don’t have to worry about being able to fully utilize the next generation.”

It’s an excellent point. Companies concerned both with sustainability and Microsoft’s current ploy may indeed find Linux an appealing alternative. Some IT leaders out there have already observed that, among other things, Linux seems to have a “green” advantage over Windows in terms of energy efficiency.

While we’re at it, how about adding thin clients to the list of alternatives to moving to Vista-desktop world?

Thanks for the feedback, everyone. Keep the ideas coming.

Related links:

InfoWorld’s Save Windows XP campaign

Retiring XP means wasteful upgrades to Vista-capable PCs

Thinking green? Think thin

Linux, Windows duke it out over energy efficiency

Ted Samson is a senior analyst at InfoWorld and author of the Sustainable IT blog. Subscribe to his free weekly Green Tech newsletter.