software and peripherals

Windows XP is available in Home and Professional editions. The Home edition is less expensive than the Professional edition, but it also offers fewer tools and utilities to support your daily work. As a general rule, choose the Professional edition for your office desktop PCs so you can take advantage of the networking wizard to more easily share resources, use the remote desktop to remotely control a computer from another location, use the encrypted file system to protect your data from hackers, and more.

Linux is an open source OS, which means that it doesn't have a licensing fee associated with it, but it also doesn't necessarily have the same level of support and easy-to-use resources that you'll find with Windows. Also, common office applications may not run on Linux, although you can find similar open source applications to meet most office needs. Linux is a good choice if you have the IT staff to support it and you have a collection of systems that don't need to run a wide array of office applications. Call centers and software development houses are two good examples of the kind of businesses that might benefit from Linux-based desktops.