“Microsoft’s most pressing problem in the new corporate
computing market is that it must convince corporate computing
managers that Windows is an effective alternative to an
increasingly stable and scalable opponent: Linux, the free version
of Unix that has recently begun to gain adherents in corporate
settings.”
“Microsoft counters the free-Linux argument by saying that the
price of an operating system represents only a tiny portion of the
total cost of ownership for a complete computer system….”
“However, some financial analysts say that Linux’s inroads
will make it difficult for Microsoft to expand its 38 percent share
of the corporate computer server market as rapidly as it was able
to grow its Windows 95 and Windows 98 consumer markets. And
slowing growth could hurt the larger Microsoft financial machine,
which has operated as a growth engine for two decades.”