But, of course, everyone knows Windows won't work without Explorer.

That's why Chugg likes Linux. "It's a loosely coupled system, so you can rip out the stuff you don't want without harming the rest of it," says Cendant's IT senior director of hotel solutions. "Don't want the Internet?" Chugg says. "Just rip it out."

Linux is supposed to be DOA on the desktop - too scattered, too feature poor to compete with Windows. But not in Chugg's world, the world of the locked-down or embedded operating system, where limited is good. This is where Linux excels. It's reliable, easily tweaked to perform specific tasks, and cheap. Indeed, when you're talking about 6,600 hotel reservation screens, the cost of putting a licensed version of Windows on each begins to add up. And Microsoft's new licensing program is adding fuel to the fire, especially among retailers that typically want to devote only 1 percent to 2 percent of revenue to IT.

Chugg, meanwhile, is upgrading his system to provide live connections into all the hotels from Cendant's headquarters, and he likes what's happened to his hotel's desktops since he first installed Linux: nothing.

"They look pretty much like we left them two years ago," he says. "We used to have to go in and clean off games and all kinds of things from the Windows machines before we could upgrade them."