In a demo of Visual Studio 2005, Microsoft claims that it is more expensive to use Eclipse (an open-source & free development tool) than buy Microsoft tools.

What a bunch of crap! Mike Milinkovich of the Eclipse Foundation recognizes that claims like this from Microsoft represent the highest compliment for Eclipse. I couldn’t agree more…

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Repeating the Microsoft mantra that “free is not really free,” the programmer showed that while the basic development environment for Eclipse is free versus a basic Visual Studio 2005 license, which costs $8,200, the cost of using Eclipse increases as users tap into load testing and other advanced features.

When he added it up, the cost of using VS 2005 was over $30,000 versus more than $100,000 for Eclipse-based applications.