Charles Babcock of [email protected] Week points out that, despite the impending breakup of Microsoft, the major near term opportunities for Linux are likely to come from under — not on — the desktop . . .

“Now that Microsoft has been declared a monopoly, some observers say Linux will waltz onto desktops as a Windows replacement. I'm not so sure.”

“I have a hunch that Linux's opportunity lies somewhere underneath the desktop. By that I don't mean down in the dusty corners of programmers cubicles, where the cockroaches are rooting for pizza crumbs. Rather, Linux will have a future as an embedded system on an Internet appliance that supplants much of what we do on bulky desktop systems.”

“In technology displacements, the revolution tends to come from below, not above. And it sweeps across a society by market forces, not court orders. In the case of Windows, the displacement is more likely to come from Internet access devices and handheld appliances.”

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