It is not always about purchase price. There is the hidden cost of supporting whatever solution you choose. I'm not saying that ISA is brain-dead simple but the learning curve on some products could be worse.
If you think ISA is expensive, try pricing out CheckPoint or some of the Cisco solutions. Then look at some of the free linux products and factor the learning curve and support cost. As I mentioned, we use all of the above but for different reasons. The cheapest (monowall) and the most expensive (CheckPoint) both run on Linux. So does our Symantec but it has been in the toilet lately. I can't speak to what our Cisco stuff is and costs because that is upstream to me, so it could very well bump CheckPoint to second place in cost.
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Give a man a fish and he will be back for more. Slap him with a fish and he will go away forever.
