“Software alternatives are just not available for Linux.”

I hear the statement above almost everyday. What makes the statement so ridiculous is that it is completely inaccurate 99 percent of the time. Normally I would dismiss this as the loss of the person or the business that has opted to limit their horizons with their platform decisions, but when I hear this coming from schools...I find myself shaking my head in complete disbelief.

Surely I am misunderstanding their perspective?

All over the world, there are schools that have saved tremendous amounts of money spent on education simply by switching to Linux. Despite the common belief here in the U.S. that there is a "software shortage" for this open source platform, schools in other countries have managed to make the switch to Linux with very little sacrifice.

So what is the hold up here in the States?