The only alternative would be IIS being better then Apache. And that is obviously a non-starter.

Is it? When was the last time you seriously sat down and evaluated both servers?

IIS 4 was a dog, but there's a lot of time elapsed since then. I don't doubt that IIS6 is a swine to manage, but then again, Apache does have a config file that contains some [link|http://people.apache.org/~rbowen/presentations/apacheconEU2005/hate_apache.pdf|alarming stupidity].

We take it as an article of faith that IIS is less good than Apache, but I think it serves us well to [link|http://www.serverwatch.com/tutorials/print.php/10825_3074841_2|examine our presuppositions] and the reasons for holding them, from time to time.

It seems to me that the real downer for IIS is not the httpd itself but rather the OS platform it's tied to.