The corp I work in has shown itself to be fairly progressive in recent years. For people like me, this means developers are generally allowed to more-or-less what they like with their PCs so long as they are productive. It probably helps that major areas function a lot like small businesses.

Anyway. I've been running a Linux desktop for more than 2 years. IMAP connectivity is okay for email, SMB access to the LAN is good, even printing works. I have access to a friendly helpdesk person for my Vista VM which is just for Outlook's calendar. I'm far from alone, but it's not common amongst the developers. Most of the Linux desktops are in Operations where people already look after Linux servers.

In the last few months, though, there has been a significant rise in non-Ops staff bringing in their own Mac laptops as a semi-official Bring Your Own Device policy has become visible. Such boxes, not surprisingly, have much the same issues connecting to the 'net as Linux boxes. :-) So the idea of Linux desktop has quickly become a visibly talked-about option.

The latest just the other day it that there's talk about making the existing support for (not of - just for) non-Windows boxes actually official.

Wade.