A UK company says its switch from Linux to Windows will save it £1 million (almost $A2.3 million). How does that work?

According to a case study published by Microsoft, British tool and equipment hire specialist Speedy Hire has junked the Linux and OpenOffice based systems running in its depots in favour of Windows and Microsoft Office.

Why? Because the company expects to save £1 million over five years. Saving £200,000 a year doesn't sound quite so impressive, but we'll let that pass.

The hardware running in Speedy Hire's depots was due for replacement, so the savings started with the choice of Wyse V90 Winterms rather than regular PCs.

"We discovered that the personal computers required to roll out Windows XP Embedded operating system using Citrix were much cheaper than those required to run Linux,” said infrastructure manager James Fleming.

It's hard to tell whether he's talking about a like-for-like comparison.

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