Failure is not an option. It comes bundled with Windows Vista whether you like it or not.
Company I work for has circa 400 PC's. We're sticking with XP for as long as we can hold out. Thankfully, Office 2007 licenses are reverse compadible. ie, you can buy 2007 licenses and install 2003. We're still checking XP licensing. Sigh
Microsoft released a compadibility pack for Office 2003/XP. Reads and writes Office 2007 formats. We're deploying it to our current environment so that we can read and edit documents from suppliers. So you don't need to upgrade just to keep up.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=941b3470-3ae9-4aee-8f43-c6bb74cd1466&displaylang=enVista is a nightmare. Ignoring the new architexture, it can't be ghosted. No ghost images mean we have to build slipstreamed install discs or manually install all of our apps. Either way, that's hours per new machine instead of minutes. Running a mixed OS environment is a patching nightmare, even if it is just two OS's.
Seriously, best common sense I can give. Do not be an early adapter for any new technology unless you have a damn good reason. Let someone else take the beating and learn from their mistakes. Stick with XP Pro as long as you can.
Maned Wolf, do you just dislike Linux? That's fine.
I'm sitting here typing away on a Windows XP Professional computer right now, supporting a pure MS/Citrix environment. No linux anywhere.
I swear to the Gods, I never thought I'd have a nice thing to say about Microsoft until I installed RDP 6.0. Or as we call it around the office, "Citrix killer". The only drawback is lack of in-built load balancing. Aside from that, faster, easier and apparently more reliable than our ICA clients. Citrix is a fine concept, especially in an enterprise environment. In reality, their handling of printers and drivers is a nightmare. If you have a team of Citrix admins, it'll work. In small and medium sized businesses, RDP is gonna make a wide adoption. We're testing it, and hoping to implement it company wide.
Re linux/MS. I like linux and run a couple of linux boxes at home. At work, we're an all MS shop. Ease of management and skill sets of our employees. Folks know how to use Windows and Office. They don't know command prompts or KDE. For corporate use, I don't see it catching on until the desktop environments are more user friendly. Open Office is making huge strides. I think it's about ready for consumer/corporation wide spread usage.