Over the Holidays I played with my Asus Eee PC 8G (straight from Taiwan) and it's Linux desktop operating system. It is not perfect, but it works surprisingly well and I can do everything with it that I do on my Windows PC, which should be pretty scary for Microsoft at this point in time. I have been a Microsoft OS user since DOS times and never ever considered another desktop OS. Sure we run Linux on our web servers, but for the Desktop it was never an option in my thinking. In 2007 I opened my household to the Mac OS and I was pleasantly surprised how well this Apple stuff works. And now Linux on a tiny cheap laptop actually works for me and I am not installing XP on it, because I do not miss anything.

2008 will see a big push of low priced hardware and those systems will ship with Linux desktop operating systems like the gOS that Everex uses on its low-priced PCs already. Dell has also been shipping Ubuntu Linux computers since last May as well.

For lots of users out there Linux on the desktop combined with Google Applications and Open Office is a real Windows alternative.
Linux on the desktop is not as sleek and cool as the Apple Mac OS yet though. With Microsoft's Vista not really getting the love from users, who would rather stay on Windows XP than upgrade (including myself), it looks like Microsoft needs to act now to prevent Linux and Apple from suddenly dissolving their desktop dominance.

Maybe Bill Gates will present something on Sunday in his CES 2008 keynote that will aim against the Linux running low-priced PC and Notebook movement of 2008.