Here's a couple pretty good articles about Microsoft servers that might help:
http://www.microsuck.com/forums/showpost.php?p=99234&postcount=3Of course those articles aren't completely bias free, as the later discussion shows:
http://www.microsuck.com/forums/showthread.php?t=9455&page=1I think one of the problems you are going to run into concerns the definition of authoritative. Is wikipedia authoritative? Is a blog from a self-proclaimed 'industry insider' authoritative? Hell, is a story on Fox News about how great the president is authoritative?
The movement away from Microsoft has some corporate shouters, but no real or well-defined central organization (and that's a good thing). The software industry as a whole doesn't have any oversight committee, and even if it did, I doubt they would be as hard on Microsoft as they should. Again, this leads to a distinct lack of what I would call authoritative sources. Meaning that everything you hear that is wrong with Microsoft is going to be somebody's opinion, and the same holds for everything you hear that is great about Microsoft. Nobody has the time or the desire to sit down and come up with some laboratory experiments that would prove that Windows sucks. Actually, I have one, but it is very biased - it involves trying to get Excel to do a task that awk can do in 15 seconds.
So you have newspaper articles and magazine articles and reviews and blogs and your own experience, but what qualifies any of them to be authoritative. I've worked with computers since the Apple II, but that doesn't make me a more reliable source than someone else. A degree in computer science from MIT doesn't make someone a more reliable source than me either. Now, when it comes to stuff like x86 architecture, or C++, then finding qualifiable experts is no trouble. But finding qualifiable experts in an area which is as much political/economical/ethical as it is a matter of personal choice, well that's pretty much impossible. So keep that in mind when you put your bibliography together.