also, ive worked for extremely large organizations, their it departments dont want to support n flavors of consumer linux installs, they have enough problems supporting windows. i remember they buy basically the same old sh*t with the same software, they have images with what you get depending on what you do, so you get windows, developer tools, office, vpn software, ect they dont really install things manually, they often lock down the machines so you can't really install your own stuff. if most people buying netbooks are for large companies, they are just not going to deal with the linux nightmare of different releases. the vpn, backup ect software most likely does not have a linux version. so they cant support linux. also they most likely going to install outlook and tie it to their exchange server, so linux is out. they are not going to install for you open source stuff, that they dont control, have tested, support.
i remember working developing software at these firms and i was not even able to update the perl version that they gave me. if i did i was like on a list of people to get rid of my stuff would not be deployed, ect.
here is a better one, i remeber when i worked at sun they would not even deploy the stuff i did in java, yes java!, it took forever, took a blessing from god, their it folks were like very nervous, because they had still not blessed java to be used, sure they were telling the world to use it. they feared java had some hole which would create a hole in their network, surreal, but it's true.
one more funny thing about sun, all their executives had / wanted very expensive laptops running the latest version of windows and the latest version of microsoft office, not solaris, not open office. it was surreal, but true.
so i'm not surrpised, however sadden, by the news item.