As a former Novell Systems Administrator the biggest draw back that we had was that Novell did not have produce their own desk-top OS. I think that they made a good move by buying SUSE. I have had a dual booting desk-top PC since the days of Red Hat 5.2 and Windows 95. I have tried most all of the Linux OS?s; for me I have found that I am fond of SUSE the best and easiest to use.

As for the end user there would not be as big of a learning curve as one would think; with Open Office and a point and click OS, in my opinion there would not be that big of a difference for the end user. It is the Administrator that is going to have the steep up-hill learning curve.

As far as security aspect, you automatically become a smaller target. Not that Linux is more secure; but because the mass attacks are targeting Microsoft based networks. There are security patches that still have to be installed. However at the moment someone that would run a full fledged Linux/Novell network automatically becomes a smaller target.

The German Government in the city of Munich Germany, has made the change over to Linux. They have had a total Linux network for about 2 years now.