A little off from your specific case regarding you work environment
but still regarding converting people to linux
or more specifically women

this was written by Val Henson
http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/doc...inux-HOWTO.pdf

floppy

How about introducing them to some of the Open Source apps like Thunderbird, Firefox, etc.

"TheOpenCD is a collection of high quality Free and Open Source Software. The programs run in Windows and cover the most common tasks such as word processing, presentations, e-mail, web browsing, web design, and image manipulation. We include only the highest quality programs, which have been carefully tested for stability and which we consider appropriate for a wide audience."
http://www.theopencd.org/

The following applications are included on TheOpenCD 2.0.
Productivity
* OpenOffice 1.1.3
* AbiWord 2.2.1
* PDFCreator 0.8
Design
* GIMP 2.0.5
* Blender 2.35a
* Dia 0.94
* TuxPaint 0.9.14
Internet/Networking
* FireFox 1.0
* Thunderbird 1.0
* Mozilla suite 1.7.3
* Gaim 1.1.0
* Filezilla 2.2.9
* TightVNC 1.3dev6
* WinHTTrack 3.32-2
Multimedia
* Audacity 1.2.3
* Celestia 1.3.2
* CDex 1.51
Utilities
* 7-zip 3.13
* Notepad2 1.0.12
* SciTE 1.62
Games
* Sokoban 1.187
* Battle for Wesnoth 0.8.8
* Lbreakout 2.4.1

Then explain how a secure Linux system is not vulnerable to adware, spyware, and all the windows viruses. How a stable system does not crash (no more BSOD). How each Linux machine can be setup as a multi-user system, so if someone needs to use a different machine any personal info they have will not be accessible to the other person.

If the machines are networked any updates can be done on one then automatically on all the others.

Linux vs Windows (a comparison)
http://www.michaelhorowitz.com/Linux.vs.Windows.html

Deciding if Linux is Right for You
http://www.faqs.org/docs/Linux-HOWTO...nux-HOWTO.html

Wow...hadn't been expecting any more posts, but thanks guys! Yup, I'm still having a tad bit of trouble convincing the head, but I will go all-out soon and show him the facts! Hehe! Thanks again for those links, and for all your help!

J_K9

To JK_9:
I see it like this:
1. the ease of operating windows and linux is the same IF you will set up linux for them (install all they need and make sure it's easy to work using Your set up)
2. do they realize linux is 100 % free? - already in Your list
3. althow you can be sure you'll get help having any problem using M$ software (because of the $ in M$ abbreviation) the probability that you'll get help using linux software is the same or almost the same because of increasing linux users number.
3. less number of viruses/trojant/spyware etc. affecting linux than affecting M$ - already in Your list

I think linux needs only one thing now - a good advertising to let people know it exists and it's just fine