TA

Microsoft Should Listen to Its Heart (and ignore the bean counters)

Not a bad article and compared to usual Microbashing that's in fashion on this site, something different for a change.

Unfortunately Malkeil really nailed it - Being in IT, I can tell you I would be let go for giving everyone the inferior OpenOffice(far superior to Google Apps). Corporations are not going online for everything - I did the numbers and it's more expensive(Internet bandwidth alone) than licensing for all but shops with 10 users or less not to mention inferior apps + extra security and DRP risk(if the Internet is down, the company cannot - email can be sent out a cheap slow backup link in a pinch, Office can't).

It's obvious from the commenters and authors, few if any work in IT or they'd understand that software is cheap, people and downtime is expensive. Whining about a $400 or $500 license per user once every 4 years to a corporation is just plain dumb - it's pennies compared to the alternative - one bad project can wipe that out. Online makes sense only for the inidividual user and very small companies.

One thing - this statement is actually 100% wrong

'Linux is anyway the default OS for servers in many organizations'
Linux actually lost a little market share last year - Windows Servers stand at 69% - remember Vista and Windows Server 2003, SQL or Exchange are very different groups - don't judge the backend by the client OS.