IMHO, Linux would be ready for primetime IF its development was controlled by a committee or something like that. After more than twenty years been a Unix admin, i cannot stand Linux mess, and i don't mean kernel itself which is ok, but the whole thing as an OS.
Even the most conservative distributors like Slackware, use to include a whole bunch of useless old and unstable crap into their base system breaking all standards including POSIX.
Volunteer developers prefer X desktop development. Even so, they put their efforts to countless windows managers, desktop implementations and different projects that will die sooner or later.
All the above are simple facts that prove Linux wrong direction. People recognize Unix as the leading server OS, but all of us, try to make it a pretty desktop alternative, with no success even after more than a decade.
Look what Apple did. They forked FreeBSD (much better than Linux imho), dropped useless parts, for them, like X and finally build an excellent GUI over it. With no more than fifty developers, in less than three years.
Another example was BeOS although was abandoned after Palm acquired Be. In that case, a single developer with a small support team built a kernel and a GUI OS using the common GNU framework and utility set.
What was Linux progress all that time ? Do you really believe IT and admins interest on KDE or Gnome or X desktop ? Or do they like spend hundreds of hours checking versions and lib dependencies? I don't think so.
Please, don't call me "Windows fan" In my company I use FreeBSD as my preferable server OS, for both web and file server and I'm also involved with system (Kernel) development on my spare time. If you want my honest opinion, yes i'm afraid that Windows will dominate on server market too .NET ASPX IIS7 XAML-enabled browsing and all that stuff show MS direction to server market. And they did it right, that's the problem.
BTW, I really believe that future companies will prefer using a server OS, known to their employees instead asking help from dinosaurs like me
Sakis is my name, ssb just a nick.