Umax Technologies has invested in VA Research, a company that sells its computer with Linux installed, even though Umax is also a manufacturer of Power Mac clones. Even without the marketing resources of a company like Microsoft, the word on Linux is obviously spreading. Linux may not catch up with Microsoft any time soon but it is definitely not going to drop out of the race. The word is that Microsoft is porting Internet Explorer to a few UNIX flavors, including Linux, and although no product names were mentioned, our advertising department has received multiple queries from PR firms about advertising Microsoft products in our magazine. I'd say that Microsoft has definitely noticed that Linux is here to stay.
Large companies are difficult to find, though rumors abound.
More typical are smaller firms and individuals within larger companies who have managed to get away with it. The following profiles of American and Canadian Linux users show that Linux is mostly admired for its speed and economy, and the high level of support by the Linux community. The two big factors driving the development of the Cisco LP system is scalability and reliability. The print system is no longer just servicing a dozen or so UNIX machines at the headquarters office, it is spooling print jobs from hundreds of PCs and UNIX hosts all around the world. Currently, there are about 1200 printers included in this system, worldwide.