Microsoft decided it’s time to abandon the “Get the Facts” site, Redmond’s Web-spearhead against the Linux and open-source threat, in favor of a more economically-oriented approach.

When Windows Vista came out in beta last year, many industry analysts forecast that the operating system’s lack of spectacular, new features (WinFile was eventually abandoned, and Aero is no match for Linux’s XGL) and the need of powerful hardware to run the code at its best would give a boost to the open source community in general, and to Linux in particular.

We have no official estimates on how Vista’s release in January influenced customers’ choices but according to Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer, the company’s next-gen OS faired pretty well in the desktop and enterprise environments, with more than 60 million licenses sold by the end of July 2007. That’s apparently more than Apple’s entire install base, and Microsoft established a bold target of more than 1 billion Windows-powered PCs by the end of 2008, with Windows Vista sharing a fifth of this huge market (approximately 200 million licenses).

However, the server market is where Microsoft is ailing, and the “Get the Facts” site was meant at “educating” the public that Windows Server is actually as good as Linux, despite numerous reports concerning flaws and exploits that affect the Redmond-crafted server OS.

The open source community responded with badvista.org, but apparently the numerous interoperability agreements signed with the likes of Novell, Xandros or Linspire in the recent period have forced Microsoft to tone down its criticism.

According to a Microsoft spokeswoman, “the goal of the site is to offer more in-depth information and customer-to-customer opinions about many of the issues IT administrators face. It turns out people wanted 3rd party validation in addition to people’s experiences making OS purchasing decisions so in addition to customer case studies, research reports that compare platforms the site will also offer guidance around best practices, web casts, etc.”

Zdnet.com editor Mary Foley found out from Microsoft that “Customers have increasingly asked for not only credible 3rd party information from other customers and industry experts, but also for Microsoft’s perspective on platform decisions as a key technology partner. Customers want to consume this information in a variety of formats - from short Q&A to more in-depth business cases - from videos and podcasts to research reports. Compare was designed with these requirements in mind - to provide in-depth information about how Windows, Linux, UNIX and Mainframe stack up along key attributes. Given that the /compare site will provide 3rd party information, Get the Facts will be retired as a destination.” This declaration is attributed to Ryan Gavin, director of Platform Strategy at Redmond.

Microsoft’s spokeswoman also confirmed that the software behemoth will continue to sponsor third party studies that compare both server operating systems’ performance:

“Microsoft will have some studies that were published on Get The Facts available on the /compare site and it may commission 3rd party research if customers ask for it and there is a need for more information not currently available in existing research.”