20 to 30 years i reckon. if they don't do something really stupid like stopping shipping windows (snirk!)
also, VoidMain, everything you say is correct (as is your bent) but i reckon Sun Microsystems are just beginning to wake up to the multinational corporateness that made M$ so popular.
They just started charging for StarOffice, and also for Solarisi386 as you say, also now you say they will bring out their own version of linux.
I honestly think Sun will quietly note down all of M$' commercial , legal and software mistakes, and will try its best to avoid them while it treads the line between obvious arsehole and benevolent software provider. I think they want us to think (in the future) something like "well, Sun has us by the balls, but at least they aren't forcing us through hoops like M$ did!".
Anyway, i am totally conjecturing, but i think Apple's unwillingness to bring out software for the i386 architecture will let linux in as the dominant desktop OS if M$ falls out of favour...
UNLESS
a company, such as Sun for instance, decides to do some slick maneuvring and get in there first.
Linux is only so popular because it's so good, but if somebody made a good attempt at marketing, i think they would be the first to leap into any foothold that M$ vacated.
Well, Sun don't have a decent desktop OS, but they have some time to come up with one, now they can see what is going on.
Maybe after all this that is not what is on their mind though, as you say, they already have a niche. It's just whether they get greedy enough to want another niche that's the question...