Looking at the budget woes of Cincinnati, Hamilton County and the regional school systems, I am frequently amazed at how much money they seem to be throwing away using Windows and standardizing on other Microsoft products. Hamilton County seems particularly dependent on the buggy, bloated overpriced OS and office suite. With OS prices ranging from approx $180 - $300 and Office ranging from $300 to $400 per seat, it seems like supplying 6000 employees with computer access would be a lot cheaper paying $0 for the OS and $0 for the office software (yeah, I know they get bulk discounts). Add to that the licensing for Windows Server and Exchange Server and the customer support needed, solutions like Red Hat Enterprise probably start looking pretty good. But, still we have the slow buggy websites the various county departments post. The County Auditor's being a prime example.
In looking for web hosts, the price for Windows service usually entails a premium charge. I assume the costs of mintaining a server internally would reflect the same cost difference.
From my experience with Linux (Fedora and Yellow Dog) and Open Office as well as using Mac and Windows, the big difference between the commercial systems and the open source systems is that the commercial systems support more proprietary media and gizmos like iPods and Zunes and frequently demand newer more powerful hardware.
For some years, governments, worldwide, have pushed for and even legislated the use of open source software.
In SW Ohio we just hemorrhage more money to Washington, tho.......