I am growing infernally curious about what the end-of-the-year sales figures for Dell’s Ubuntu machines will be. Not just how many bought those machines or in what proportion to Windows users, but how their long-term experiences shape up against others (as well as whether or not they elected to buy support).

Windows is often the most intuitive choice from the CIO's perspective. Just like in the old days, when "nobody ever got fired for buying IBM," Microsoft is safe, at least from the stockholder's perspective.

IBM is embarking on a huge energy-conservation project to consolidate about 3,900 of its own servers reducing power use by about 80 percent and saving US$250 million on electricity, support and software over five years. Under the project, IBM will replace 3,900 smaller servers with 30 IBM System z9 mainframes running Linux and virtualization software.

Open Source methodology has gained some ground in one of the last places you and I might expect: In the development area of corporations. Consultants are calling environments like Sourceforge Enterprise Edition a Digital Development Environment.

We went to OSCON, hoping to uncover some fresh details on Sun Microsystems' "Project Indiana." We mostly failed in this endeavor.

Ball told his IT department he wanted Microsoft products out of his business within six months. "I said, 'I don't care if we have to buy 10,000 abacuses,'" recalled Ball, who recently addressed the LinuxWorld trade show. "We won't do business with someone who treats us poorly."

"There are many barriers for adoption to Linux... These barriers are perception as opposed to the fact in many instances but there is one area in which Linux lacks creativity, energy, and innovation. This area, if addressed at all, is done in pale imitation of others and poorly executed. That area? Marketing."