Hey julia,
Have you considered whether surplused hardware from within your organization
could be used for some of this?
It may not suffice for a windows server, and i did not see if you already have
linux boxes.
Linux is a great platform for GIS for both desktops and servers. This might be
a
Fantastic over view of governments using open source for a global perspective
in the may issue of the open source business resource
But even other people using it won't convince the laggards.
Open source GIS is often implemented from the inside out and not top down.
Eventualy some can point
Also keep in mind, unlike windows specific applications many foss4g apps rely
on shared libraries like OGR and back end DB's.
So the testing is not just of the application but also the libs and DB's.
A feature comparison is a good start and many masters projects have already
done that as well
