Indy,

I can easily see many enterprise clients sticking with XP a while longer. I am constantly amazed at how many of these companies rely completely on old software programs that have been poorly maintained - and in many cases they don't even have the source code to it anymore!! Some of the companies I know are still upgrading to Windows 7 but are using XP Mode to overcome back compat issues. I suppose all we can do is wish them well.

As for companies switching, I'm seeing as much one way as I am the other. One of the local manufacturing plants that belongs to a major fiber optics manufacturer is rolling on Windows Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008 as fast as they can in a bid to consolidate off of mySQL and Oracle. However, there are some companies that are dabbling in open source looking for cost savings. It would be interesting to see an official statistic on what is happening across various industries.

Regarding Oracle, check out this article that I found interesting:

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/howlett/oracles-40-sun-hardware-slide-a-business-under-threat/3013?tag=content;selector-blogs

I can't really say most SMB's are installing Open Office. All the ones I still work with are using Office 2007 or higher all the way. However, there is no doubt that OO is out there. Again, it would be interesting to see an official statistic.

JamesNT

James Summerlin
My personal site: http://www.dataintegrationsolutions.net
james@dataintegrationsolutions.net