Just one tiny example: how long will it take to change the corporate mind into realizing that filenames are case sensitive?

There's another issue with non-power users as well as the loss of a few day's productivity, and that's the new hires issue. These days, new hires are expected to be computer literate, at least to the point of being able to find their way round Windows and Office. This doesn't just include people changing jobs to come to your company, but also you expect school kids who work in the summer to be able to use your computers within minutes of arrival. You'll be expecting that you need to teach them the job and maybe the specific computer tools that you have, but you don't expect to have to teach the basics of using the computer. But with Linux on the desktop, you will have to do just that.

On the issue of porting, he comments "But even some Windows applications need upgrades, and especially in-house developed applications that rely on certain settings, which are sometimes not possible on a new Windows version, need at least tweaking for the new Windows version. And if the switch/upgrade team provides a properly pre-configured working Wine installation, the switch is a lot less painful and can be distributed over a longer period of time. Then again, does your company want you to run your own CDs with various stuff on the company PC? Windows has no proper way of preventing such thing, but Linux has."

The last comment is interesting and reflects on the attitude your company has to its users modifying their PC's setup; it has nothing specifically to do with Linux. I know that many companies don't allow people to install new software on corporate PCs, the usual reasons given being fear of virus infections, distraction of employees from the work that they are paid to do, and causing support headaches. Some companies go much further and prevent all sorts of user activity, such as disabling the use of screen savers. Now some of that is designed to prevent employees from screwing up the computer configuration and thus causing support calls, but some of it is, to my mind, pure control freakery and adds no real value.

To my mind, limiting what your employees, and particularly what your power users, can do with their computers is wrong; you limit their creativity and ability to innovate; you send them a message that they are expected to live in a straitjacket. But every company actually relies on its power users to develop and drive the company forward by their very creativity and innovation. Stifle that, and you risk your corporate future.

As for the stability question, Florin wrote, "Take anything enterprise-worthy after NT 4.0. It requires a new install every few months to keep working properly. If you don't believe it, try simply timing the opening of an Explorer window right after installation and a few months later. The same decrease of speed can be observed in all applications working with the disk. Another test: see what happens when you create a file on a disk partition which is bigger than half of the available empty space, and then try to delete it (maybe service packs fix these issues, I don't know). In regard to speed combined with maintenance costs, I think the main factor why companies don't recognize the value of Linux is ignorance.