It seems to me that *nix is gaining market shares if various news releases are to be believed. Probably due to the increase in the number of corporate people who understand and can make *nix work in a business environment. If i were just starting out, maybe 20 or 30-ish, i'd make a concerted effort to gain competent *nix certification status and stay close to the developers of those OS's. Not to say i would ignore MS, because lots of private people, businesses and probably government will continue to use and update annually their MS OS's and Office Groups. But some other very important businesses have converted to *nix lately, where updating the MS family has become a significant figure on the wrong side of the balance sheet, and there is no reason to believe the migration will stop anytime soon... especially as young, *nix knowledgeable admin folks climb the corporate ladder to CEO's, COO's and so forth. As for me... Well, i'm too old to get serious about manipulating the open source with any degree of security, so i'll just let MS do the fixes and patches on my OS's and office groups, then download them while i sip my freshly brewed Yukon blend....