It was reported last week that AT&T is looking into using Linux as a standard desktop operating system on a company-wide basis. This could mean replacing Microsoft Windows PCs, which are on more than 70,000 desks throughout the phone company.

AT&T has set up a lab to evaluate how Linux desktops would work as an everyday technology environment for the company. The telecom giant is doing this as a way to explore potential cost-cutting methods, the company said last week. AT&T is also investigating Macintosh OS X as a potential desktop operating system replacement. AT&T says it will make a decision based on its evaluations at the end of next year.

Since AT&T invented the first Unix - the great grandfather of Linux - a corporate-wide move to Linux would be another of many ironies in the open source industry. (See The SCO Group legal saga for the biggest example.)

But it remains to be seen whether AT&T is actually serious about switching from Windows to Linux or if it is just trying to scare Microsoft into giving it a bigger discount. This is a tactic cited by some observers of government agencies in England, which have threatened a Windows/Linux swap. Other government agencies in Germany and in Asia have pulled the trigger on Linux desktop rollouts as a way to lower infrastructure spending. China's move to Linux is driven by an interest in becoming less-dependant on a foreign company for software.

But cost cutting must be foremost on AT&T's mind. Last week it announced 7,400-job cuts, and plans to reduce the value of its assets by $11 billion. Certainly, it couldn't hurt AT&T's bottom line if the idea of using cheaper open source software on tens of thousands of PCs pans out.