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You might be interested in knowing that Mandrake is not Linux on the desktop. It's "Linux simplified". They release server products, now clustering solutions, security appliances, with the goal to make these tools easy to setup, easy to administer. This is not only on the desktop, it's also on the command line (did you try urpmi for instance?). As a result, Mandrake's project is really accurate in my opinion.

If you look at the big repository of "Mandrake business cases", you can see that the typical use of Mandrake is *not* on the desktop.

Of course yes! Look at http://www.mandrakebizcases.com - there is an impressive number of companies running Mandrake in their business there.

I also noticed today this interesting story at DesktopLinux.com - a guy working in a professional sound-production studio, for radio-broadcast, who has switched all the system from Windows to Mandrake Linux 9.0 and Ogg. He noticed that he had all his hardware working perfectly, and also noticed the quality of the MandrakeSoft support answers. This is a very interesting case, because it's out of the traditional "server" business case, more in the multimedia area, and definately shows that Linux is gaining more and more momentum in all sectors of activity.
http://www.desktoplinux.com/articles/AT5847717353. html

Mandrake Linux Business Cases
Consulting Times
Open Source - ready for business
Open Source on the Business Desktop
Why Open Source Software / Free Software (OSS/FS)? Look at the Numbers!
A Hard Look at Linux's Claimed Strengths

1. For PostgreSQL you can go to PostgreSQL website - they
offer paid support. PostgreSQL is much better for
OLAP solutions. MySQL is very fast but I really don't like
its design - no transactions, etc...
2. You can go to mandrake-linux.com for some other solutions...
3. Probably RedHat. I don't know for sure.
4. Probably you can get Red Hat support 24/7
For business cases in Mandrake
you may click here...

Mandrake's site features an informative Business Cases page, which includes one article in particular that might provide some insight.

I totally disagree with you! :-) In my IT environment I can see more and more companies using Mandrake. You know, Windows 2000 is very focused on the desktop, but companies use it as a server ;-) This is the advantage of Mandrake: it's solid and reliable, which is needed for servers use, and it's very friendly as well, which is needed for a large adoption. I think you should have a look at Mandrake Business Cases to see how much Mandrake is used in the industry.

who have started migrating users to linux desktops.

And they're not the only ones ...

Mandrakebizcases.com

With things like winbind in samba-2.2.3 (to integrate authentication with an existing windows infrastructure), evolution 1.0.1(a mail/PIM client windows users would be happy with), mozilla 0.9.8 (a really good browser) and OpenOffice.org build 641, out the box printing without having to worry about installing print drivers (via CUPS) you have everything most desktop users need for business use - for free.

People need to stop saying it won't work and just try it!

And of course, the chances are, we aren't going to use Redhat for it, but Mandrake.

Also, you need to take a look at where Linux is selling and where it's not. 1/4 of all new servers last year shipped with Linux preinstalled. Redhat, by far the most succesful Linux distributor, focuses almost exclusively on high-end corporate sales, as do most others who are doing well. I'm sorry to say this, but your piddly Windows XP Home Edition "stability" does not count for squat in the eyes of any CIO. Hardware demands, throughput, speed, requisite stability -- the bar is set so much higher in a typical business environment than you, as a home user, could possibly fathom. It's estimated that eBay lost close to $10 million in cash when it went down for 22 hours last year. Would you bet $10 million dollars of your money on the stability of Windows XP? That's the level of assurance we're talking about here. And in this arena (at least from what I hear and read) the NT 5.0 kernel still can't hack it. Don't take my word for it, do a google search for "Active Directory Server stability" and see what comes up. So I would object when you say that "Linux vendors will have to come up with something better than stability to sell their distros." Perhaps in the home market this is true. But it's clear that, at least for the time being, any Linux vendor worth their salt isn't targeting just the home market. Even Mandrake.

There's a story on the Mandrake website about a California school that has replaced their entire (very large) IT department, as well as other parts of the school with computers running Mandrake. They still use macs for most of the student work, but are slowly switching those too.

Quite often, when talking about "Linux in companies", people concentrate on big-scale employements, "global 500" companies and such.

However, most people (90%?) work in small to medium enterprises with hunderts of "bizcases" online these days, and most of these are form small companies, schools, universities, NPOs... who simply can't afford the cost of commercial software, but can't afford the cost of a full-time linux/unix administrator either.

Link: MandrakeBizcases

There is such a site.... It only covers Mandrake Linux, but at least there is a site!

It doesn't do everything, but there are a ton of testimonials and you are free to add your own there as well.

Articles like this and other such as the ones over at http://www.mandrakebizcases.com/ are exactly what Corporate America (and the world) needs to see and hear if Linux is going to really make inroads in corporate america. Corporations don't look at the logo on their computer that shows up when they boot, they look at the bottom line in their spreadsheet.

There are thousand cases of Linux uses in corporates (large and smaller ones as well) on MandrakeBizCases.com. Worth a look.

[subhead] Microsoft Opponents Frustrated As Worm Proves Harmless

MSN will focus on the political issues and try to avoid going anywhere near the 196,000+ systems infected, and similar issues.

Ummm, if the cracker has any brains (and any malice left) (s)he'll get his nice, fresh list of over two hundred thousand known-vulnerable targets and release a different worm that targets a number of whitehouse systems using a mixture of DNS and IP addresses. And maybe saves itself to disk and restarts on boot.

Meantime, for the longsuffering ASP dependents, we heartily recommend visiting the ASP2PHP website. And if you're not using ASP, put IIS+Windows in the bin now and install something decent in its place. Mandrake 8.0 should do.