"The second-order implications are even more interesting, because I think there's no way that Michael Dell didn't see this coming," Raymond wrote. "His company has been quietly selling Linux machines to business customers for several years -- which means he's got more than enough real-world market data to see where the trends are going. Mr. Dell had to have a pretty strong suspicion that Linux preinstalls were going to show up as a top user demand before the fact -- and yet, he let IdeaStorm happen anyway. This tells me he isn't nearly as nervous about angering Microsoft as he used to be. Something in the balance of power between the world's largest PC vendor and the crew in Redmond has shifted, and not in Redmond's favor. You can bet money on that."

Running Linux on Dell laptops could have another lure, Raymond wrote. "I think one significant problem Dell and Microsoft are facing is just that Vista is too resource-hungry and bloated to run well on sub-$500 machines, which are the highest-volume market segment now. Dell may be arranging itself some maneuvering room to preinstall an [operating system] that won't make its low-end hardware look like crap."

Stephen O'Grady, an analyst at RedMonk in Bath, Maine, said the move could work if Dell sets its expectations appropriately for Linux-equipped laptops. "But people expecting Linux [on laptops] to have the same impact as in the server market [where the operating system is widely used in corporate IT] would be a stretch."

O'Grady said free Linux distributions such as Ubuntu have matured and "in many respects are equal to [Microsoft] Windows or Macintosh OS X."

Such a configuration won't soon unseat Microsoft's dominance in the marketplace, he said, but there is a maturing market for the combination. "It just depends on how seriously Dell will take the opportunity," O'Grady said. "I don't think it's ridiculous at all."