The average user (business or not) is much better off now using GNU/Linux
instead of Windows than they were 10 years ago. Especially if they are using
an OS based off of Ubuntu. Here is why.
1.) The web browser is the most used program regardless of operating system.
Chrome/Chromium and Abrowser/Firefox on a GNU/Linux distro can access the
same sites and playback the same media as their Mac OSX and Windows
equivalents.
2.) Want to play audio and video even in the Windows Media and MP4 formats?
VLC can play anything you throw at it and of course supported on GNU/Linux.
3.) If local email is a priority, Thunderbird works the same as the Mac OSX
and Windows equivalent and has excellent POP3 and IMAP support. There's also
Geary, but that project is a little immature.
4.) If your company is tied to Outlook and/or Exchange, you can use the
webmail version in the browsers offered in your GNU/Linux distro. You may
never need to install Outlook and can access your email anywhere.
5.) For local document editing, corporations are still tied to Office and
their formats, but LibreOffice can handle the binary and XML formats well.
Since Microsoft didn't support the Strict doctype of their own specification
until recently, even the "open xml" format is not truely open. In an ideal
world, these companies would settle on the OpenDocument format so users of
Office and LibreOffice could work in harmony, but many are stuck in their old
ways or don't know of the alternative(s).
6.) Some companies are moving to "the cloud" and moving to Google Docs
instead of renewing their Office subscription. While it is true that Google
Docs is non-free, it will work the same on every browser regardless or
platform. A user can edit a document or spreadsheet in real time on IE on
Windows at the same time as a user in Ubuntu with Firefox and have no issues.
7.) A little while back there was a demonstration of the Steam client for
GNU/Linux being able to use Windows applications and games by "streaming"
from a Windows box. Once again, the Steam client is non-free, but I have seen
videos of someone using Photoshop on their Ubuntu machine through Stream.
8.) If Windows XP support (or any Windows) is super critical, they can run a
VM in VirtualBox on their GNU/Linux machine and isolate the environment. They
can only have the VM run the necessary programs and disconnect from the
internet if necessary. This is nice if you have a dual monitor setup and run
GNU/Linux in one monitor and Windows in the other.
In summary, as more things move to the web (or cloud), the worry about what
programs may or may not run is less of an issue. As long as Google and
Mozilla keep their GNU/Linux versions of their browsers up to speed with the
Mac and Windows ones, the future looks bright.
