Leaving Redmond

Let me quote freely from this USA Today blog post on the eve of the Microsoft Windows 7 launch that my colleague Bob Sutor Tweeted my way earlier today.

According to a survey conducted by Boston research firm Chadwick Martin Bailey, of 145 IT pros 51% plan to standardize on Windows 7 for laptops and desktops.  Thirty-eight percent intend to do so with netbooks over the next couple of years.

But at what cost?

• Opting out of Windows 7 can save the typical American business with 20 or fewer employees up to $40,000.
• Government agencies crunched by budget shortfalls can save big by avoiding the switch to Windows 7; with 14.7 million state and local government employees and 2.5 million federal workers, saving up to $2,000 per employee would be a huge relief to government spending.

But as the story continues, rather than jump over Vista from XP to 7 (which in many cases will require significant hardware upgrades), why not leave the Windows merry go round, dump it altogether, and move towards a lower-cost alternative?

Say, for IBM and Linux distributor Canonicals’ new Ubuntu offering.