[ Thanks to Louis Aragon for this
link. ]
“For clues to the company’s emerging challenges, consider places
such as the emergency services dispatch center in St. George, Utah.
For three years, the dispatchers tried to use Windows-equipped
computers to process calls. Almost every night, one of the machines
would inexplicably crash, forcing the operators to handle requests
manually, information systems director Sherman Stebbins said.”
“Frustrated and worried that someone might die because of the
glitches, Stebbins recently decided to give Linux a try. He liked
it so much that within weeks, he installed the operating system on
all the personal computers in the dispatch center. Now he’s
considering replacing Windows on every other computer in the police
department….”
“Linux has only a tiny share of the market, but Microsoft
feels threatened enough to have shown a short film ridiculing the
operating system at its annual meeting with stock market analysts
in July. Afterward, Microsoft executives underlined the point: We
made fun of it because we’re scared of it.“