I'm not sure how scientific this poll is, but personally I'm flabbergasted by their findings:

http://www.cioinsight.com/article2/0...2130070,00.asp

Basically, they surveyed 90 companies with revenues under $500M and found that 90% of them were going to be using Linux in some form or another by the end of 2007. Now the vast majority of that is in the server arena, but apparently 23% are using it for the desktop. They present it as a "just", but I'm truly surprised that it is anywhere near that high.

Using Linux in my own small business has made a ton of sense, both from a cost perspective and from a capabilities perspective. I guess I'm not alone in that opinion.

Microsoft might strong in home uses but Linux is good in server.

i will agree with you..

That might be right, I went into a Electronics shop called Maplin electronics to buy a power supply, and there I was with my own eyes Fedora Linux {I don't use it though} it was at the login screen, They seem to be using some data base software used for stocks of goods.

At college one of the tutors worked part time at another big college and asked a technician if he could explain what Linux was as the college was thinking of using it on some of there Destops, though I have left college and there is no way of me finding out if it went ahead or not as he is a linux user and wanted to know if it was novell or redhat.

I went to an Interview the other day for a warehouse op they said at some point all the staff will need training to use the new computer systems when they get them and said they have been waiting to do this for 4 years now, I just wonder if this could be Linux, or may be training on vista but I don't think they would give us training for some think that is so similar?

I actually use it for my small business as well, but almost had to give it up due to the new version of QB & Peachtree being incompatible even with emulation.
When I switched over I ended up having to transfer months of sales data into Gnucash and left the previous years' data in Peachtree under a Windows partition just in case I needed to get at it.
I think the fact that none of the popular small business accounting applications will work natively is one of the biggest hurdles Linux has to overcome to become more popular for a desktop OS for small business owners.

I think you've hit the nail on the head here. Quickbooks is really the only reason I keep Windows around (well, that and the occasional Microsoft only client). Unfortunately my accountant is very adamant on us using Quickbooks, so we have to keep at least one XP machine functioning. I'd find another accountant that wasn't so picky, but this guy is gooooood.

I've put a good number of Linux servers into SMB over the past year.

They won't do it on the desktop - they've already bought an operating system they know how to use, and they need the application support that Windows provides. They need AutoCAD, they need Sage Accounts, they need it supported by the application vendor. END OF STORY. Don't do the long-playing-record thing with them - you'll just turn them off. As far as the server goes though, to them it's a black box that sits in the corner. They feed it a tape every night. They don't care how it does what it does, as long as it does it.

Let's face it, most SMB requirements aren't that complex. Samba and Sendmail/Dovecot/Squirrelmail will deliver everything that 99% of them need, and it's all free. The backup software is free too. You don't need any CALs to access it. That, my friends, is competitive advantage.

Even on sites where they are Windows through-and-through, I've managed to find a place for Linux servers. e-Mail is an easy target because Microsoft's implementation of SMTP is terrible, and wide-open to abuse. Put a linux box in front of it, and close it all down. You can also do a bit of spamassassin and greylisting while you're at it. Did I mention that it all free?

Database servers are also an easy target, although it does depend upon what the front-end application vendor will support. Ask the question of them. They may say "No", but by asking the question regarding MySQL or Postgres can make them think about competitive advantage for their own front-end product. At the end of the day, and ODBC or JDBC connector should go some way to making the choice of back-end irrelevant, and if the front-end software vendor can save their customer some money by deploying against an open-source database, they're one-up against their competition.