Ditto that. At this point, the only practical option I see is to run Linux and then run Windows apps "inside" Linux using Netraverse's "Win4Lin" or similar (and yes, I know all about WINE and Codeweaver's "Crossover Office"--WINE simply "isn't ready for prime time", and Crossover doesn't really support much more). "Win4Lin" has pretty much run everything I have thrown at it.
I wish to gawd that someone like IBM would take WINE by the nape of the neck and get it to work on a wide variety of apps.
But that doesn't fix the hardware driver problem---:^(.
Linux on the desktop is just starting. We are years away from having mass market suppliers give a damn about it, if they ever do. Anybody who thinks that linux is going to open up like a rosebud and have 15 years' worth of desktop software development available for it, like Windows does today, is not being realistic. For the foreseeable future, most desktop linux is going to be high-seat-count dedicated applications, like where somebody has 3200 stores running a sales and inventory system all day... and that's all they want 'em to run.
There is probably some segment of governments, Europeans, and people who hate Microsoft that will collectively form the core of a nascent linux office/productivity desktop software market. How fast it will grow from there, and how big it will get, is Bill Gates' problem, not ours.