[shakna]

> to establish a de-facto standard on the home desktop market...

Doesn't this have a lot more to do with pre-installs, and the marketing power that comes with it?

Dell's XPS Linux line and the Asus EEE PC were/are both pretty popular with the average person, so far as I'm aware.

[bitwize]

Indeed. No one wanted Windows until it came preinstalled.