As a consumer, I want the choice of ANY commercially available OS on a pc when I buy it. It could one of many... Too many times workstations are purchased with OEM licenses and the OS is wiped out to install your preference later which in essence wastes the OS license as well as $--not to mention additional manhours.

Tracy

>>Tracy,
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>>I want to hear that! For years I've been asked which is better - Novell or NT/2000. I've always backed Novell, even though they seem to have slipped up some in the recent past. Lately it's been hard to tell - I'm afraid I'm falling victim to the MSFT push... the thought of my server running non-stop without fail since the day we brought it up (a year and a half ago) snaps me right back out of it.
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>>The problem I keep running into is new IT admins coming into our client sites who are Microsoft certified out the wazoo who are scared to death of anything Novell. There's a fear breeds contempt feeling out there and the sad fact is, without a whole lot of effort and training a perfectly good network OS is slowly slipping away (in market share).
>>
>>The fact that Novell has gone the way of negative adverstising, simply means they don't know how to do it on their merits - If they had someone with HALF the fire in the belly as their Microsoft counterparts, they could become dominant again.
>
>Not as long as Novell's competitor gets their OS/servers installed on every box Dell and the other major OEM sell. Did you see the leaked email from Dell stating that the NEW licensing from Microsoft prevents them from selling PCs without Windows on them? The 'punishment' phase of the DOJ trial isn't complete and MS is back to their old monoplistic tricks again. I'm waiting for a consumer lawsuit on this.