Prominent security analyst John Pescatore has put a new twist on the Windows cost of ownership debate with a call for enterprises to add the expense of managed intrusion prevention software to the price of Microsoft's operating systems.

Pescatore, a vice president and research fellow at Gartner, said companies must recognize that the expense of configuring systems to deal with critical security vulnerabilities must be included in the total cost of ownership when alternatives to Windows servers and PCs are being evaluated.

"Many of the vulnerabilities that continue to be identified in Windows 2000, XP and Server 2003 are easily exploitable," Pescatore wrote in a research note.

By Ryan Naraine at Enterprise IT Planet.

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