I'm no "m-soft pipple", on the contrary, I specifically don't particularly like the company and I very much want to see some serious competition to the 800 lb. mean gorilla in the marketplace. But if there is, I expect it will be very very slow, because M-soft is so deeply institutionalized. For example, my wife takes college courses part-time, and almost always her courses REQUIRE HER to use PowerPoint. And students who MUST have PowerPoint are NOT going to own two computers, one with M-soft to have PowerPoint, and another to have Linux. They'll buy one computer with M-soft. And if you think these various and sundry instituitions are going to change from M-soft to Linux, or any other OS in the next 5-10 years, you are smoking some potent stuff. These institutions move like glaciers.
several million kids are about to get linux based laptops, if even a very small percentage are smart or motivated there is going to be alot of inexpensive compatible software to choose from
what happens when some chinese/indian/bangladeshe figures out a bunch of people will pay him $9.99 for a program that will allow them to use powerpoint on linux alla open office/microsoft word