Re:Early Adoptor == Burned (now living in Ubuntu) (Score 1)

For the independent worker or small offices there are many solutions that work great outside of the MS family, unfortunately the realities of big companies/groups is that it's much easier and more profitable to stick with what everyone has/knows even if it is not necessarily the best option out there.

Yes, I understand the problems of working in large companies/groups. However change can occur. I work with large organizations, 500 to 10,000 employees. When a group decides they want to move with something like Google Docs, they have managed to get the cooperation with IT. In fact, we gave IT the idea that 2,000 within their employment only needed Google Docs, thus cancellation of 2,000 licenses. This has taken six months to be argued, put in the IT planning and execution, and another 3 months for change management that is in the works right now to train employees to use Google Docs and establish a set of procedures that are workable.

Yes, it is a huge undertaking to make change away from Microsoft Products. In the end, we need to smell the money; if it is cheaper to operate with something like Ubuntu, it will happen. But unfortunately while Ubuntu may be cheaper to buy (i.e., nothing) the cost of re-tooling is the problem. Change and change management is not cheap.

I agree, it is going to be sometime yet before we see large organizations take the plunge. In the meantime, small organizations can gain the benefit with a few enlightened managers around. In the course of this year, I am seeing more and more businesses under 20 employees making a change to less expensive IT. And Red Hat or Ubuntu are the options they are seeking.