"Since at least 2001, a meme known as '(year) will be the year of Linux on
the Desktop' has been published by a number of tech-related magazines,
referring to the prior year's experiences of supposed 'gains' for Linux
adoption by business corporations; these gains can vary in reason, such as
the installation of a Linux distribution onto the desktops of workers for
organizations or companies who may not be immediately or otherwise involved
in the computing industry, or the acceleration of development for specific
applications which find their greatest usages on desktop Linux
distributions, or the pre-installation of specific Linux distributions onto
PCs being sold by PC manufacturers such as Dell (Dell), Hewlett-Packard
(NYSE: HPQ), or other corporations. The meme, which is used on an annual
basis, has been roundly criticized as redundant and overreaching."

Such memes are clearly self-replicating (that's why they're called memes). I
know that, in years past, whenever I was ordered by my bosses to do a "state
of Linux" article, I'd call the usual suspects and ask them if "this'll be
the year." They always told me it would be. Twelve months later, I'd repeat
the whole process.

Perhaps the best reality check I found comes via an N.C. State University
survey of users of ResNet, the residential network for students, which found
that "Windows usage has consistently been over 90%. Linux usage was at its
highest in 1998 at 2.47%. It dropped to less than 1% in 2003 and has
plateaued [in 2006] around 1.5%."