According to the Meta Group, "Under the guise of reducing total cost of ownership (TCO) in a tough economic environment, technical staffs are recommending replacement of Windows with Linux on their servers. This is based on the flawed assumption that because Linux is 'free' it will reduce TCO. On closer inspection, it appears the recommendation is [more an] emotionally driven reaction against Microsoft than a factual case for Linux. Astute IT organizations will recognize that Linux' true value is derived more from the price/performance of the commodity Intel hardware it enables than from its open source characteristics. Our research indicates a strong interest in using Linux in the data center, but few clients understand the real value of Linux, nor have many clients embarked on major Linux projects outside of web server farms, appliances (network-attached storage [NAS]) or general infrastructure servers (e.g., DNS, DHCP)."