Cost is a lot more than the physical machine.
This is why Linux machines while technically less expensive (no OS license) are actually more expensive in terms of support. Until that nut can be cracked it's hard to get wide-scale adoption (e.g. 50% deskops vs. 5%).
It really depends on the company and the nature of work people are doing. Some software is a mess on anything but Windows. Some software is actually better on Linux.
Those are people who are aware of Linux, while much of the population isn't. Selection bias at play.
> unless they port their main product to Linux
Office accounts for about 5% of MS's revenue.
> how can they claim to be cooperating when the ONE product that most people agree is a very good MS product is not available natively on Linux?
That's not the only definition of "cooperating"...
Except for basically every thread I've seen about switching to Linux, where people say the only reason they won't switch is because they still want to use Office and Photoshop.
>If that were the case, then porting Office to OS X would've had a similar effect, don't you think?
No. Cost is a major reason people don't switch to OS X. But Linux is free.
> Ultimately I believe the reason Microsoft doesn't bother porting to Linux is that the market-share is just not worth the cost of re-writing for another platform, and keeping it updated.
That is a good point. But as I said, unless they port their main product to Linux, how can they claim to be cooperating when the ONE product that most people agree is a very good MS product is not available natively on Linux?