Me thinks the scenario might be a bit different. Oracle has bought Sun and now Oracle is able to deliver desktop - to - server solution. This desk-to-server is what has in the past made IBM strong .The companies left IBM because IBM put them in a straight jacket which killed initiative. Along came the Apple computer for graphics and then IBM answered with the PC but only after a long time graphics came to the PC. I think we will see businesses going towards Solaris on the desktop (in a straight jacket by Oracle) because the present generation of managers has not been in the IBM straight jacket. Micro$hit does not have a dektop-to-server market penetration, they tried hard but could not. Look at Novell having survived - my dad thought they would be out of business when M$N moved into the server business. Cannot help but still seeing windows for the foreseeable future as the "masses" operating system. We've tried Linux and there is always something that ain't just right. It may be dual screen, or sound, or the latest driver unavailable or whatever. You think Joe Bloggs will put up with that? Look at Sony with the playstation - you make no money on selling PC's to businesses but you make money selling stuff to the sheeple. Now with the economy going the way it is then you can expect people cutting back on luxury goods - and let's face it: replacing that aging PC is luxury. You don't need a new PC to surf the web and read email. And the digital camera and photo processing stuff is acceptable enough and not a driving force to upgrade. The PC is now a mature product and one can expect a PC to work for 5 years or even longer. You really think people will buy a PC if they have trouble paying their mortgage? As in any depression: luxury goods are the first to go. The other item to remember is that people are trying so hard to make a living that they are too tired in the evening to even try to learn a new way of doing things with Linux. just my $ 0.01 Maria
IBM bought the PWC consulting arm - the most glib salesmen you could ever find. They have dropped their PC making business which apperently never made them any money because they were over engineered and could not compete against the cheap knock off copies. Will take some time before IBM heads in the same direction as that PWC did: initially heaps of customers but then after a while avoided like the plague.
google docs.. they take your desktop experience back two decades at least.. and I've tried Openoffice a number of times over the years, and always uninstalled it within 5 minutes.. and linux, wow, that was supposed to be taking over the low end a few years back but Microsoft started selling $25 licenses, Linux got shut out faster than a Little League team in Yankee Stadium... IT people don't want Linux, it's for experimenters. It was started by guys that had expensive engineering software at their workplaces that was not copy protected. They wanted an os to run it on at home. It started out very geeky and it never escaped that realm... I don't know any IT people that want it in their workplace... All you "Openoffice /Linux / can't stand windows" guys... admit it, you're cheapskates that would rather short change all your efforts than run a nice well funded operation and actually get somewhere with it... people that won't spend money on their business won't make money...
Your perspective doesn't extend much further than your own desk does it ? http://searchdns.netcraft.com/?position=limited&host=e.g.+.google.com http://searchdns.netcraft.com/?position=limited&host=interactivebrokers.com http://toolbar.netcraft.com/site_report?url=http://news.bbc.co.uk http://searchdns.netcraft.com/?position=limited&host=whitehouse.gov http://searchdns.netcraft.com/?position=limited&host=yahoo.com http://searchdns.netcraft.com/?position=limited&host=oracle.com http://searchdns.netcraft.com/?position=limited&host=nyse.com And your concept of IT guys seems to be limited to the person that can fix your Outlook when it's broken. As for OO, you don't know what you are talking about.
MSFT had high volume trading today. yeah, their earnings pretty much were disappointing..but their new OS is coming out on October 22. amazon and american express also reported bad earnings....
Sheeple could care less about OS costs, they've never paid for one directly, it's always been pre-installed. Those with the know-how to install Linux were probably pirating Windows anyway. All that matters in the end are business users.