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I made an assumption when writing my book that, due to various political preferences by CEOs and such who all think they know how to run an IT department better than the IT manager, the question of using Microsoft on the desktop is a non-issue. It's going to be rammed down your throat whether you like it or not, along with Office and all their other creepy programs. Fortunately, the bigots that insist on Windows on the desktop generally don't know or care what the back end server OS is, which is where the IT manager has some discretion. So, if you are going to be the IT manager of most organizations, your opportunity to use FreeBSD is going to start with the servers. Since you need to work your way up to being the admin, you will have to start by learning Windows on the desktop.

Ultimately it comes down to a credibility issue. UNIX people think nothing of giving no credibility to the Windows bigots because the Windows bigots don't understand or know UNIX. But, when roles are reversed, the UNIX bigots don't understand why the Windows bigots don't give them any credibility.

If you make a conscious decision to be a UNIX bigot, as I did, no Windows bigot is ever going to give you any credibility when you advocate FreeBSD or other UNIX, unless you know Windows better than they do. You can be a PhD making $250K a year working for Sun, and have a history in UNIX going back 30 years, and a pedigree as long as my arm, but if you don't understand how to administer a Windows network, or how to load Windows, then none of that is going to matter to the average business owner that has been raised on a Microsoft diet. The second it becomes obvious that you don't know the Microsoft OS, they will stop listening. If you are lucky enough to work at a business or corporation where you have complete control of all the OSs and you can put FreeBSD on every computer, then you can perhaps get away in your career without knowing anything about Microsoft products. But, you also don't have any moral authority to tell a Microsoft supporter to give up Windows and replace it with FreeBSD.

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