“State government CIOs vote for open source”
This is an oldie but a goodie. InfoWorld writes State government CIOs vote for open source.
According to the article, CIOs are moving their agencies toward heavy open source use. In the Tipping Point sense, I would say they are at the early majority stage, and appear to be growing fast.
The article’s data is not highly granular; for one thing, it does not distinguish between server and desktop use. But enough open source migrations have occurred in the world that we can identify a typical process, which is that server and web infrastructure migrates first (often led by Apache), followed by select desktop applications like Firefox and OpenOffice.org, and then eventually desktop OS replacement by Linux.
To see US governments following the footsteps of places like Brazil, Europe and developing countries means that the phenomenon is truly worldwide. Governments will break down the barricades, and then the private sector will rush through to reap the benefits too.