I grew up with Microsoft operating systems. I’ve been through MS-DOS 5.0, Win 3.1, Windows 95, 98, Millenium Edition, NT 4.0, 2000, and XP. Notice how I stopped there. After over a decade of Windows, I decided to give Ubuntu a try and now have no reason to install Vista. Here are nine reasons why I chose Ubuntu:

But will the rest of the world follow?

I've been talking the last few days with Oracle, Novell, and SAIC about how open source figures into their product plans and, in SAIC's case, how open source affects the company's services strategy.

Dell has taken the unusual step--for a PC vendor of its size--of toning down its sales pitch for Microsoft's Vista operating system and warning businesses of the migration challenges that lie ahead for them.

[Dirk Riehle is] the author of The Economic Motivation of Open Source Software, a scholarly article that describes significant shifts in the software business. Datamation spoke with him about how these shifts are shaping the pay levels of open source developers.

Nora Denzel says open-source software is changing the landscape of an industry led by Hewlett-Packard and IBM.

And finally for some good news... :-) "Microsoft's Windows platform is losing traction with application developers in North America, according to a survey by Evans Data."

The more I think about Microsoft, the more I realise that they are, possibly for the first time, seriously cornered (or surrounded, depending on how you want to see it). A little history will clarify why I think so - and why I think that this might really be the beginning of the end for Microsoft.