At the consulting company I work for Linux has been an option for 6+ years together with Mac and Windows.
Hey, even at the customer I work with now (a rather influential directorate), people have the option to choose Mac or Linux.
And: pro-tip, if you are going to work in such a place (public directorate), consider taking the Mac option because unlike with Windows PCs there are limits to how cheap the bean counters can get them and the budgets for hardware is optimised independently of the budget for hiring more people to cover for the fact that they aren't nearly as effective as they could have been and I am afraid - also the hiring budget. (The Linux option is the second best: you get the same hardware but with Linux you make the best out of it.)
That never ceases to amaze me: I mean, as software developers we usually get paid more in a month (or maybe two) than the company hardware we are using costs, so you would think it would be obvious to anyone that money spent on hardware which enables us to be more productive is money well spent?! But no, "do you really have to have the laptop with 32 GB RAM, isn't 16 GB enough?"...
This conversation exasperates me and has happened too often even at profitable and/or well funded companies. I don’t know what it is about ordering upgraded-spec computers that inspires people to desperately want to save money, but even as the decision maker on this I’ve had to repeatedly defend spending, say, and extra $150 on MacBook Pros rather than Airs to people who are oddly fixated on the topic.
That’s like one hour of the person using the machine’s time! To save them tons of frustration and wasted time from their computer thermal throttling while, say, hooked up to multiple monitors, compiling, and running a video call.
> I’ve had to repeatedly defend spending, say, and extra $150 on MacBook Pros rather than Airs
Funnily enough I've sometimes had problems with the reverse. I've got a bad back, and lighter laptops are easier for me to deal with than heavier ones especially when I'm on-call. But sometimes the only option available at work has been a 15" MacBook Pro or similarly sized Linux laptop.
I have a strong preference for Linux laptops but I'd really also like it to be small and lightweight!
My wife sustained a minor head injury when the weight of her new work-issued MacBook Pro caused her wheelchair to flip over backwards when she stood up momentarily. (It was hanging from the backrest.) MacBook Air is not an option currently on the menu.
If they'd see the skill discrepancy between Linux desktop users and Windows desktop users, businesses would never hire anyone with a Windows background again. I work in a heavy Microsoft environment these days and the skill level is just sad. If there's no button to click people are at a loss. If there's no GUI to consume the logs people don't know what to do. Whenever I interview, if you write C#/.NET but your daily driver is Linux, you're practically hired.
Probably a third of my colleagues is using Linux at work, me included.
And it is getting even more widespread as most of the "office" work moves to Office365 and such which are all cloud/web based, so which OS you are running literally doesn't matter anymore.
Fortunately the "corporate desktop world" (cough M$ Office cough) is getting less and less relevant the more things move to web apps. I'm not a big fan of web apps mind you, but at least that's a plus...
Enterprises have been pushing as much work as possible through the browser for a long time. Outside of a few niche applications I don't think they will have much of a problem migrating.
I'm glad to hear there have been some consequences to Microsoft's anti-user product direction. But where we need to see Linux permeate is outside of tech bubbles.
Hey, even at the customer I work with now (a rather influential directorate), people have the option to choose Mac or Linux.
And: pro-tip, if you are going to work in such a place (public directorate), consider taking the Mac option because unlike with Windows PCs there are limits to how cheap the bean counters can get them and the budgets for hardware is optimised independently of the budget for hiring more people to cover for the fact that they aren't nearly as effective as they could have been and I am afraid - also the hiring budget. (The Linux option is the second best: you get the same hardware but with Linux you make the best out of it.)