Leader: Can Windows to open source moves still shock?

This week has seen the subject of migration from Windows to open source software raise its head once again.

More precisely, a week on from the Agility Alliance claiming Linux isn't secure enough for large enterprises, we heard about two fairly low-level switches in the UK.

On the subject of the former, let's just say we shouldn't be surprised. With a membership including heavyweights such as Cisco, Dell, EDS, EMC, Fuji Xerox, Microsoft and Sun - some downright hostile to open source and others grudgingly accepting it in some parts of their business - the Agility Alliance is saying what we'd expect them to. Whether it is right or wrong is another debate.

On the subject of the latter - who is switching and why - again, should we be surprised noise is being made? No. In fact, expect more and more of it.

Big wins for Linux - European cities such as Munich, Bergen and Vienna come to mind - show that no longer can Windows and other proprietary OSes (though mainly Windows) have it their own way.

That's to be welcomed. Mono cultures are unhealthy for lots of reasons.

And Microsoft itself must accept a 'correction' in its market share, as some might put it, was always going to happen - though don't expect that to be said too loudly.

But it will do what it can to fight back. A story earlier this week about the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) ditching Linux for Windows wasn't without its doubters. Sure enough, RICS had been running a mixed environment and in the end settled on Microsoft probably as much because hiring in additional open source expertise - Linux servers were previously externally hosted and maintained - would have been prohibitively expensive.

That's a pretty good point. The news may have been pushed out by a smiling Microsoft press office but it was RICS' IT director speaking to silicon.com that shared that nugget.

At the same time, today this publication is the first to reveal another classic public sector Windows defection - De Montfort University switching to Novell's SuSE Linux and ID management software for 27,000 students and staff.

The story isn't as simple as the user flicking a switch from one environment to another but it's the sort of story you are probably already familiar with.

We predict more movement away from Microsoft and other proprietary software than towards it over coming years. That's hardly profound.

But saying Microsoft will still scrap and fight, win some new custom alongside that which it loses in traditional markets, and indeed probably still do pretty well, thank you very much, should also hardly be surprising. Only blinkered open source diehards think that won't be the case and that somehow observers such as the media should forget there are two sides to this fight.