I work for one of the largest companies in the state, we're talking major
corporation with some serious hardware.   When I hired on, I was well
versed in Linux and somewhat versed in a lot of other Un*x OSs.  My
company was the typical Linux story.   Not allowed because no one is
directly responsible if it freaks out and we lose money, but in just about
every geeks wiring closet doing some task on ancient hardware that Asset
management forgot about a long time ago.   I get the honor of having the
first official Linux box, a cluster even, in the company.
The biggest problem we had was that we were going up against the powers
that be, trying to fight their fears with things that seemed too obvious
to us.    Linux isn't owned like Windows is so where do we get support.  We
typically respond with , well we have newsgroups. But you have to
remember, CEOs know that news groups are good for viruses and pr0n (Thanks
Wired Magazine).   I wish I could go into more detail, but I'm not sure
what is considered trade secret in this case. So I'm just going to end
with, present Linux to a CTO with all the CTO buzz words and a finger,
albeit a fuzzy one to point ( and sometimes, at least in my case, that
finger points straight to you) you will be surprised what you get in
return. If you believe that strongly in it, stick your neck out.
And remember, know your stuff inside and out because when it does break,
you will have to have it fixed twice as fast as the NT or Solaris servers,
even if it is 3 times as complicated.

-- 
              Jason 
       www.cyborgworkshop.com
...and the geek shall inherit the earth...