Actually I think one of the significant strengths of Linux is it's ability to play well with others.
You use linux... Say Redhat + IBM. IBM does some stuff to piss you off and cost you money. Well, you have Debian to choose from, or Suse, or Redhat on a white box server. Say Linux starts getting a bad rep, a screwy security record and so on and so forth. You want to stop using Linux, you have one of the BSD's (FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD) to choose from. Or possibly Solaris, or even AIX if you want IBM.
Want 32 cpus? Ok, all it takes is some green back. Want to run on a power platform? Want to run on a Sun Sparc computer?
Almost everything you do will be almost directly applicable to any other platform. No lock down to any one vendor, you choose your support level and pay those who you trust and like.
Due to the open source nature of it, a local Unix Guru with 20+ years of Unix support can do just as good as a job as any technition from Redhat or Sun. White box, HP, Dell, IBM, Sun, Intanium, AMD, Power, G5's even. Oracle, PostgreSQL, MySQL, etc etc etc. Spam assasin, Quail mail, Sendmail. No like Redhat? Suse, Debian, Mandrake, Gentoo, etc. No like Linux? FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, Dragonfly BSD, OS X, Solaris, AIX.
Migration from one platform to another is relatively cheap and easy. All these different computers speak pretty much the same language. The wonders of Open Standards and Open Software. Everybody tries to make sure that their products stick to standards. There are vendor/OS pecularities and personalities that you have to contend with, but it's nothing compared to the nightmare of MS's policy of embrace + extend, then lie and obsofcate about how everything works.
Linux makes great "glue" to make things work together. It makes a good way to integrate Windows networks into a larger Unix framework. Say you have a large Oracle database running on Solaris on some hardcore setup. You have just aquired a remote office from another company with a bunch of stick-in-the-mud accountants that have once used FoxPro databases, but have recently migrated to a MS SQL setup on a W2k3 server. You want to connect the two databases together, were you have choosen critical data that needs to be added to a particular database in on your Oracle database server, but you want to let the accountants have the system that they are used to and enjoy using.
So you take a old workstation and turn it into a Linux box (debian stable), you have a leased DSL line for internet access. You buy a couple Mini-itx boxes, hook it up to local network and install OpenBSD on them and use Via's hardware-based encryption to form a high speed encrypted tunnel over the internet and thru the heavily (and multilayered) firewalled setup on both networks. You install a OBDC connector on your linux box and run a script as a cron job to update the records on the Oracle database with records pulled from various tables in the MS SQL based database at the end of the work day. Something simple, secure, and easy to maintain. Stick them in a closet, keep a eye on the logs, and run cron jobs to keep them updated. They'll run for years before you probably would have to deal with them again in any substaintial manner.
But there are a lot of factors. Linux can cause a huge hassle and expense if you just assume that it's the best thing for all jobs. Linux generally, but if you want a real answer you'll have to be much more specific on what your going to use it for.
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