I am a freelance computer consultant like many of you. I had a client the other day that had a windows 2000 system she picked up as a donation. She had forgotten the administrator password. I backed up her data using Acronis (no encryption), installed Lbuntu (a special distro for older systems), gave her a wireless dongle, extracted her files on a windows box, and moved them over to her Linux system.
As it turned out she was already using OpenOffice. She was of a certain socioeconomic status where this made sense, and now she no longer had to pay for her operating system either.
More importantly, I'm not pro-Linux or a Linux expert. I installed Red hat so many years ago, it was ok, but not great.
This time when I installed an Ubuntu derivative, there was technical support in terms of documentation, IRC, and forums and I used all three.
The point is: Linux is great for older systems, great for people who can't afford Windows and Office, and is well-supported.
--Sam