Fascinating study done by Harvard Business School on economics behind the Open source movement and its implications on Microsoft – unlike other partisan reviewers, the authors are accomplished professors who look at the issue from an unusual angle – formal economic modeling, here is their main finding -

"Our main result is that in the absence of cost asymmetries and as long as Windows has a first-mover advantage (a larger installed base at time zero), Linux never displaces Windows of its leadership position."

http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item.jhtml?id=4834&t=technology

 

Other Quotes -

The model shows that Microsoft can use piracy as an effective tool to price discriminate, and that piracy may even result in higher profits to Microsoft!

Harnessing demand-side learning more efficiently is not sufficient for Linux to win the competitive battle against Windows.