One of my favorite sites, arstechnica.com, has
this post regarding MS' newfound hatred of Linux.
Full disclosure: I am certified in several flavors of MS, but I am no MS bigot. My own websites run on Linux boxes, but that's more a matter of economics than technical fit. But there's no way in hell that Linux is ready to take over the desktop. They know this, tho:
Microsoft's power in that arena is formidable, and in fact, their #1 desktop competitor isn't Apple or Linux, it's Microsoft. Microsoft's biggest problem is its own customers, and the lack of compelling reasons for Joe Sixpack to keep upgrading. For every "switcher" out there, you can bet there are dozens of people still cruising on Win 98, effectively having ignored two upgrade possibilities (WinME, and XP). Add in Office, and you can see where the potential revenue problems are.
Joe Sixpack is not a very bright boy. But that misses the point, too. Joe Sixpack doesn't own enough Win98 for MS to care: it's the business desktop, and the overwhelming drag is not in the big companies (who have all figured out how much more stable Win2K is), but the Small to Medium sized Enterprises (the SMEs). And those stingy bastards hate to spend money.
What's funnier is that they rarely realize how exposed they really are. If they're still running Win98, then their hardware is likely to be old enough to be out of warranty. That means that both the software AND the hardware are no longer supported by their vendors. Mwuaghahahahah! Instant company death!
It's the Invisible Hand of Darwin.