Yes, and sales can have greater impact where Linux has a greater presence such
as in Europe and emerging markets in Asia. In the States and Canada, it is less
so because of the penetration of Linux is not as high. Although due to the size
of the American market, the numbers of Linux users are comparatively high. Right
now everyone is looking to the future and the big growth will be with an
emerging middle class in China and India. They may be taking us for granted now,
but they can't ignore a waking giant.
OEMS are starting to take notice regionally, but it is spreading from America
since many manufacturers have a head office or established base there. I think
that once the driver issue is resolved then this will open up wide avenues for
Linux to grow in. The other limits to the growth of Linux is not having it
pre-installed and that is changing and the other one is games. That one may
never happen, but time will tell.
There is no reason why Linux can't do games. It certainly is less resource
hungry than Vista. Once XP runs its course game makers will have to makes some
decisions. Do they want to go down a dead end with Vista (even M$ is looking
ahead to the next OS), wait for Windows 7 or move to other platforms? If they
are waiting for the next M$ release perhaps that will give them time to divert
some of their energy to Linux while they are playing the waiting game.