Just as the debate over whether Linux or Windows is cheaper to deploy and manage was threatening to become old hat, IBM on Wednesday fired the latest salvo by promoting two reports it sponsored.

For as long as most technologists can remember, there has been "Wintel." But "Lintel," or the Linux operating system and Intel, is now encroaching on this empire, and behind it is the entire open-source software movement, which threatens to overthrow the Windows industry.

Rackspace is a leading Web hosting company which, with about half of its enterprise customers using Linux and the other half using Windows, surveyed its users to find out why they chose one operating system over the other.

OMG! Softpedia has published an editorial by the Editor-in-Chief and the Linux-Editor showing their complete ignorance of Linux and sticking their feet in their collective winmouths. We need to sick Helios on 'em.

Like many people last week, I received an urgent email from our network manager. It reads, in part: 'A new virus "W32/IRCBot.worm! MS05-039" is active out there!' I have never had a computer virus, trojan or worm. Not a single one. How have I achieved this blissful freedom?

Few IT organisations have the luxury of being able to choose an all-Microsoft or an all-open source infrastructure. And even if they could, it's unlikely they would survive.

The Zotob attacks could have been prevented by proper Windows patching, or they could have easily been prevented for less by using Linux in the first place.

Contrary to what the headlines would have us believe, the biggest threat to Microsoft's continued dominance, at present, is not Linux. It is older versions of Windows. The biggest threat to Linux is not Microsoft, but rather integration and interoperability issues among various Linux distributions and their applications.

Can an annoyed Windows user find happiness in a multiplatform environment? Our editor tried the Mac and Linux--and came away impressed.

Rivalry between different derivatives of OpenSolaris has already begun, two weeks after Sun Microsystems' initial code release.

Most of us have been conditioned for so long that the Microsoft "platform" is essential that we scarcely pause to think about alternatives. But as long as we can perform our essential tasks - print that report, send that email - does the operating system really matter?

Dubbed 'SchilliX' after its principal developer, the first operating system based on OpenSolaris has been released, days after Sun Microsystems freed the massive code base.

Although incidences of profanity and swearing are rare in the ten million lines of the newly-released OpenSolaris code, the ones that do exist reveal programmers' frustration with their art.

Competitors and analysts are waiting to see whether possible Linux challenger OpenSolaris will build enough of a community to change Sun's business future.

With servers, where there is a good economic model, Linux would clearly remain favored over Apple because of much deeper support from companies like HP and IBM. But on the desktop, for most users, Tiger is the clear winner. It has better desktop application bundles, better customer support, better hardware, good value and is easier to use.