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Over the past year or so, MS have been actively promoting the “fact” that Linux has a higher Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) than Windows. TCO refers to the costs other than the initial outlay, such as hiring more costly engineers — rather than the cheapest you can get hold of — and not having the great bastion that is MS tech-support.

How true this is, I don’t know. Personally, I doubt it. Downtime from viruses would be one factor I’d point my finger at and there are many others.

However, that is not the point of my post. The point is that Doug makes a point that accounting for IE’s various manifest CSS bugs probably accounts for a good 10% of each project he undertakes. This means that paying for support of MS’s browser means an extra 10% on your bills.

Now, I know that this post is by no mean scientific in the slightest. It just amused me somewhat that a company resting much of a recent agressive push on TCO inadvertently adds a margin of cost onto almost every commercial site produced. Something to mull over, IE team, when you’ve finished fixing up the security bugs. Best of luck, because web people everywhere are ready to welcome a standards-complient version of IE with open arms.