Recently we came across the updated VMware cost per application calculator and discovered what our customers and partners have been telling us all along – VMware vSphere 5.1 costs more than Windows Server 2012 and System Center 2012 combined. And we’re not just talking about license acquisition cost, but also the capital expenditure costs (CAPEX), including power, space, storage, and server hardware costs.
See Microsoft GM Amy Barzdukas full blog post on the subject at http://blogs.technet.com/b/server-cloud/archive/2012/11/15/vmware-finally-admits-that-its-costs-are-higher-than-microsoft-s.aspx.