It's the beginning of Round Three in this knock-down, drag-out battle between Windows and Linux for the hearts and minds of developers building gadgets like smartphones, PDAs, firewalls, and consumer entertainment equipment. Before we get underway, let's catch up on action from the first two rounds.

Looking at the judge's scoresheet from Round One, you'll see that Windows landed about twice as many punches as Linux in the realm of PDAs and other handhelds, while delivering three times the body blows as Linux in mobile phones. At the same time, Linux outpaced Windows in audio/video equipment jabs by a healthy 4:1 margin, and dealt it a real piledriver in gateway/server devices. Scorecard: Linux 178, Windows 175.

Moving on to Round Two, despite some fancy footwork on both sides, the relative standing of the two embedded OSes remained about even. Windows continued to own the mat when it came to PDAs; and while both OSes moved forward in the mobile phone arena, Windows held on to its 3:1 edge. Meanwhile, Linux increased its advantage in gateway/firewall devices, and maintained its audio/video superiority. Also, in VoIP devices, newly broken out as a separate category, Windows and Linux were in a standoff, each showing up in the same number of devices. Scorecard: Windows 247, Linux 243.

But wait — our contestants are just now making their way towards the ring… the crowd is going wild…!!

And so it is with great pleasure that we present . . .

 
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