Over the past 5 years or so, Linux has slowly crept into the enterprise workplace. Its insurgence has been sped up by anti-Microsoft geeks and Sysadmins looking for solutions that Microsoft couldn’t provide cheaply.


I’m a Sysadmin, and the majority of the systems that I work with are Windows-based systems. However, with that being said, unless Microsoft does something creative, I firmly believe that in 5-10 years there will be more people that can administer Linux rather than Windows Servers.


Back in the 90’s Microsoft got a strong foothold in the enterprise from Novell and older UNIX based servers by offering ease of use for administrators with their release of the NT 4.0 Operating System. There are countless other reasons as to why Microsoft has succeeded in the enterprise, but there is one reason that isn’t so obvious.


At the time, there was no such thing as Product Activation and this allowed burgeoning Sysadmins to install NT 4.0 Server at home (albeit illegally according to Microsoft) and gain experience administering such systems. Contrast this to UNIX which is nigh impossible to have installed at home.


With Microsoft attempting to exterminate piracy with its Product Activation it virtually eliminates something that made them so popular in the beginning. How are young adults going to become experts in Windows Servers if they can’t actually get hands on training with them? Microsoft Certification classes are too expensive for most young adults to finance. Most Universities and Community Colleges offer Windows based training, but students are probably going to flock to something that they can install at home rather than going to the lab all the time to finish their assignments. Granted, Microsoft does offer a trial version of Windows Server 2003 which supposedly lasts for 180 days but in my experience, it only lasted 18 or so.


The fact that most young adults can install Linux, play with it, gain huge amounts of experience with it before they even leave High School or Middle School is something that Microsoft will be hard pressed to combat. It will be interesting to see how things unfold.