Most of what MRC sells are products that are often used in extreme operating environments, so they need to be replaced regularly.

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"What you get is a recent college graduate loading Linux on some old system that's kicking around, and it's free, " said Dan Kuznetsky, program director for IDC's operating environments service.

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However it becomes much more complicated when you are operating in regulated environments like financial services.

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From a roadmap perspective this will also force Microsoft to support many more mobile operating systems and environments than they ever have before.

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They are used by the U.S. military in the most exacting of circumstances, by local and state police forces throughout the nation, and by enterprise users operating in difficult environments .

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It is used in a wide range of military missions, even operating from unpaved runways and in hostile environments.

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At cell towers in extreme temperature environments, Nanophosphate EXT further reduces operating and maintenance costs by minimizing or eliminating the need for air conditioning or heating.

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VMware also benefits by creating even more demand for its cloud-level operating system, and staves off competitors that also want to create meta-server environments, like Microsoft.

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