Do you know why Microsoft will loose the Battle.

Yes there are many competing software products for different applications. But because Microsoft makes entire tool suites from relational databases to development environments to the OS they are all designed to work together synergisticly and offer software support which companies must rely on to support their systems. Many of the open source software operating systems and applications infringe on commercial companies software patents and create legal vulnerabilities for companies which rely on the for their mission critical applications. So far companies like Microsoft have chosen not to sue companies violating their intellectual rights probably because of the public relations damage which it would do. But if Microsoft's marketshare is ever actually threaten that may change quickly. It's even more ironic Iron_Cider because of your typo "can be sued" instead of the "can be used" which I think you meant to say.

well..........there are still many things in which Microsft dominates........GUI developer tools found for MS, rarely have a substitute........... but this scenario is soon gonna change.........no one wants to spend so much on a single OS....when they get so much for free..........