Microsoft vs. Open Source -- Not unlike the perennial Intel v. AMD standoff is Microsoft's ongoing Open Source open sore. Year after year, the Redmond-based giant has sought to convince us that Open Source Software -- and Linux in particular -- is expensive, insecure and unreliable. The Open Source/Free Software community vehemently denies such sentiments, and generates its own propaganda which, in 2005, had a clear impact on the decisions of IT buyers. During the year, the Open Source browser gobbled up some of Internet Explorer's market share, while shipments of Linux servers in the third quarter outpaced Windows server shipments by five percentage points, marking the thirteenth consecutive quarter of double-digit growth for Linux boxes. Meanwhile, in September, the US State of Massachusetts said that state employees would be ditching Microsoft Office in favour of Open Source solutions -- a decision that hit too close to home for Microsoft, which has long endured sharp criticism from public sector bodies in Asia, Europe and Latin America. By November, five backers of Linux -- IBM, Sony, Philips, Novell and Red Hat -- calling themselves the Open Invention Network were funding an effort to buy up related software patents, the latest in a series of efforts to reduce legal risks that could impede the wider use of the operating system, which looks set for further gains in 2006.