When I argued that point a month ago, I didn't really believe it. But I took the position to make a point about the need to properly justify IT decisions. Over the years, I've seen many IT executives lose their jobs or trash their careers because they made a decision that was obvious to them but could not be effectively defended to upper management or internal auditors.

A month ago, I believed that Linux was ready for the enterprise. How could it not be? It was being used by enterprises.

However, my opinion has changed and it has changed dramatically based on feedback from that column and talking to a wide variety of users. Now I wouldn't deploy this stuff in my own small company, let alone in an enterprise.