Reply #10: I work with MS and non-MS systems daily

[slackmaster]

Windows 2000 is extremely stable and so is XP. SQL Server 2000 is rock-solid and very rich in useful features. IIS 5 is an excellent HTTP server and very easy to administer. It supports a wide range of server-side functionality out of the box.

I'd like to see Microsoft stop trying to grab every corner of every market. If they'd concentrate on the OS and a reasonable suite of business applications we'd all be better off.

My company has about equal numbers of Windows 2000 and Linux servers (running Apache, MySQL, and Mod Perl applications). I run the Windows machines solo, while it takes four engineers thrashing around to keep the Linux boxes running reliably. Both systems have strengths and weaknesses.

BTW I've been involved in data processing professionally since 1983 and have worked on numerous different platforms including several mainframes and versions of Unix. Linux is definitely up and coming, but please don't sell present-day Microsoft OSs and applications short until you've worked with them.