Dell is selling Ubuntu equipped stuff now as an alternative OS .....
China/Germany/France is swinging the marketplace to some degree by insisting that the MS Win 8 not be used for government data, period.
This trips a tipping point as Linux has always said they could never vie for being the predominant OS until PC makers would be willing to put Linux OS on brand new machines at retail .....
HP is doing this now, as is Acer and Dell.
Dell is a big 'un in business, too.
Ballmer's replacement sure has a LOT of housekeeping tasks to take care of. Governments and entire countries are not trusting MS any more. Sure, they are European, but still -- governments saying that Win 8 is untrustworthy and has been cracked by the Chinese (and NSA) is pretty stinky.
MS's firing of Sinofsky and Ballmer, then not being able to name anybody internally for CEO says that MS has a very weak bench .... having to go look at CAR companies says they feel they need something they feel they can't get in Silicon Valley or Cupernio at all, period.
Shopping for a turn around guru is what they are doing ....
Still, pay attention guys. Screw around for another six months and the issues will just gets deeper and stinkier (and fewer folks will be willing to try to take it on).
Book all the rest of your losses and get your books cleaned up and maybe somebody will try to help you -- nobody is going to sign up for the last HUGE quarter of Ballmer's big Surface losses and the other Ballmer/Sinofsky messes that haven't been booked yet.