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The debate of Linux vs. Windows superiority has been raging for years. Where is each operating system being used in corporate environments today? Is Linux replacing Windows to any great degree?

I would have to say that the raw data would suggest Linux is replacing Window to a significant extent. Worldwide the number of Linux VARs, Linux Applications and Linux installs are increasing. Lot's of discussion on this topic has already taken place, but the reality is Windows has done a fine job of making their software UI user friendly and to some extent various versions of Linux are not so user friendly (with the exception of SUSE version) so the common guy will stick with Windows.

It is for mundane processing tasks that require little systems administration and maintenance - such as for running your corporate firewall if you are a small or medium sized business, or for some data warehousing projects that have large volumes of data that may be processed in batch processing and number crunching programs. These apps require less overhead to maintain when they are hosted on a non windows platform.

The score is starting to tilt more towards linux!!
Linux netbooks have 32% of the global netbook market, according to Jeff Orr, an analyst with consumer computer research firm ABI Research.

The largest share of netbook sales is in the Asia-Pacific region, including Japan, Australia, and New Zealand.

ABI's latest figures are similar to what Dell executives are reporting in 2/09 - that Linux netbooks comprised about 33% of Dell shipments of Dell Inspiron mini 9s netbooks.

This data seems to cast doubt on claims by Microsoft that Windows XP has captured 98% of the netbook market (a figure Microsoft later revised to 93%.)

It should be noted that the 32% Linux netbook market share does not include either user-installed Linux or dual-boot systems, but confined to just pre-installed Linux shipments. If we include those numbers than the percentages will increase a bit.

The race is on..

I think Windows has to rediscover itself. The time of a resource intensive OS is a thing of the past.

Additionally, security has always been an issue with Windows.

I believe all Vanilla *nix should try to more be like Ubuntu. Folks from Ubuntu have done a great job.

What happens if MS one day buys Red Hat or Ubuntu like Sun bought mysql?

I'm torn on this. I have hacked around in Linux off-and-on over the years, but have never really "used" it for my every day computer usage.

Early in November, I decided to switch one of our home computers to Kimo, an Ubuntu version for children. It installed okay and comes with some games that my kids enjoy, but we can't get it online! We have wireless Internet and I have Linksys USB wireless adapters on that computer, which are not natively compatible with Ubuntu. After spending hours and days trying to make the wireless adapter work, I gave up. There sits our dumb terminal with kid games on it, and it probably won't get any better than that.

Until Linux can be truly "plug-n-play" with most if not all hardware, I don't think the home market will adapt Linux en-masse.