Good question. Depends on who you listen too. With the advent of cloud computing and more and more netbook manufacturers churning linux machines the future for linux is bright.
Netbook sales have rocketed due to the economic downturn. Check online for the figures.
Microsoft claimed 90% of the netbook market to Linux's 10%, but there are taking a massive revenue hit to compete with free linux.
Other sources claim MS have 70% of the netbook market. Then there is Apple to compete with (still linux in a way) once they pull their finger out and release their range of netbooks.
Taken from link.
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Windows-on-90-of-Netbooks-Linux-on-Just-10-105971.shtml
"And the Redmond company indeed took a hit, as it missed revenue estimates in Q2 2009 by approximately $1 billion, with Windows Client division profits dropping, a situation also correlated with the jump in netbook sales, as the software giant gets paid less for Windows on mini-notebooks compared to normal PCs. "
Where linux can really punish MS is with it's servers and cloud computing. Amazon is in position to be a major player and have teamed up with ubuntu.
