It's a marketing myth that Linux in combination with open source Linux applications are less productive than another platform.
If you open your mind and look at it objectively, Windows is not nearly as productive as Linux, in fact, objectively speaking, Windows software is less secure, less user friendly, less feature-rich, less polyvalent, less compatible, less performing, less customizable and of much lesser quality.
Long time Linux users have the hardest time getting things done on Windows machines, because all the extra functionality and performance, and all the choice of applications and work flows, that make productivity on Linux such a dream, is just absent on Windows. In Linux, there is a "can do" mentality, there is always a simple solution, well, in fact, there are always at least a dozen simple solutions to choose from, whereas Windows, or other closed source closed ecosystem commercial software consoles, are "can't do" environments: they don't adapt to the user, the user has to adapt to them, they're not compatible with everything, the user has to use a particular format, etc...
People need to open their minds to the reality: Microsoft did not invent productivity on PC's, the only thing that made Windows popular, was that it was a cheaper solution back in the 1990's, because it integrated a number of features of separately available third party solutions, and the entire MS-Office suite was offered at about the same price as a single third party application:
1. MS-Office as a whole: at first, Microsoft offered Word, Excel, etc... separately. The popularity of Microsoft office productivity software took off when they integrated everything into one suite, after the model that had made Ashton Tate's Framework so popular before that. They even copied a lot of the GUI aspects of Ashton Tate's Framework II and Framework III in the Windows GUI.
2. MS-Word: MS-Word has a really difficult time competing with WordPerfect at first. WordPerfect was the first really good word processing software, it was developed for *NIX platforms in the 70's, and later ported to MS-DOS, where it dominated the market until the mid 90's. People that have used it, will confirm that the printed end result from WP 5.1/5.2 was better quality than the printed end result of MS-Word at the time. The fonts were rendered better, it was faster to use, what broke the market dominance was the non-WYSIWYG editing, even though WP 5.2 was still better at that than MS-Word 3.0. WP was expensive, MS-Word was cheap, MS-Word won.
3. MS-Excel: originally, spreadsheet applications were developed by IBM for use on *NIX machines. The first ever WYSIWYG-spreadsheet application, was VisiCalc, which was originally available on Apple II machines, and which was the most popular application by far on Apple, and the reason why the Apple II became so popular in the first place. It was later ported to MS-DOS, and became pretty popular there also. IBM then responded with Lotus 1-2-3, which was much more powerful, and was developed specifically for DOS PC's. That was the industry standard spreadsheet application until the mid-90's. MS-Excel was cheap, so MS-Excel won, even though everybody that has used Excel and Lotus 1-2-3 next to each other back in the day, will confirm that Lotus 1-2-3 was more powerful than Excel.
4. MS-PowerPoint and MS-Draw: Presentation software back in the day also came as a port from the *NIX world. A very popular solution was Harvard Graphics, which offered vector-based and bitmap-based graphics editing, together with PowerPoint-ish presentation editing and running. People that have used it, will confirm that it was more powerful than the old Microsoft solution. MS-PowerPoint was cheaper, MS-PowerPoint won.
5. MS-Access: database solutions at the time on PC also came from the *NIX market, and was ported to MS-DOS. The most popular application throughout the 80's until the mid-90's, was Ashton Tate's dBase. It had more functionality than MS-Access, and MS-Access took a really long time to catch up, notwithstanding the introduction of SQL-server to kill dBase. Difference: MS-Access was cheap, dBase wasn't, MS-Access won.
In the end, the productivity market is always slow to react, but right now, Microsoft Windows and the commercial applications for it, are the most expensive solutions in the market, and they offer the least functions, the least compatibility, the least reliability, and the least security. They will not win any more. They haven't evolved with the needs of the market. They basically took a snapshot of the available technology in the 1990's, and continued to sell that solution, with every upgrade, breaking compatibility, and becoming more expensive.
The *NIX world has evolved since then, they have added over 20 years of software development. People that don't see the benefits of the open source productivity software, are using their PC blindfolded. There is just no productivity software that can even touch the quality and efficiency of open source applications on Linux.
Back in the day, MS-Office became popular because it was a 250 USD allround solution to substitute for expensive standalone solutions: MS-DOS was cheap in comparison to *NIX operating systems, WordPerfect cost 500 USD, dBase cost 700 USD, Harvard Garphics cost 900 USD, Framework cost 500 USD, Lotus 1-2-3 cost 400 USD. People preferred the cheap, even though less powerful, MS-Office applications.
By Windows XP and MS-Office 2000, MS-Office on MS-Windows had become a very expensive application, costing over 700 USD for MS-Office and MS-Windows, MS-Office 2003 was even more expensive, and open source development accelerated. A few years down the line, the huge reduction in license cost of MS-Office, can't make up for the price difference with free and open source alternatives, and since the open source alternatives actually perform better and have more compatibility and more features, it's a no-brainer. Most businesses are still using XP and MS-Office 2000/2003 right now, because it was such an important investment. The upgrade cost will be the deciding factor.
Add to that the lacking features, performance, reliability, security and compatibility of the Microsoft products in today's Linux-dominated technology environment, and everybody knows the outcome. Microsoft conquered the market based on price, they will be beaten based on price. The actual efficiency and features of the software, are only a secondary factor, but even there, Microsoft products are hugely deficient.
People that use mobile devices, which are the next step in productivity, know that they have a much better integrated experience when they use Linux on their PC. Using Linux devices (Android is the most popular distro and most popular operating system in general in the history of mankind, and it's just a Linux distro after all) with a closed source locked down software console like MS-Windows, means using a closed source syncing application, that only allows for DRM-content to be synced, or using commercial cloud applications to sync, but it doesn't offer an integrated experience, whereas using such devices with a Linux PC, is just an integrated experience of an entirely different level. The longer MS-Windows locks down the PC platform, the more the PC market will decline. That is just a fact. Right now, the only thing that will revive the PC market and the PC as a productivity device, is the general adoption of Linux as PC operating system, and the adoption of open source productivity software.
The productive use of technology also determines the entertainment use. Right now, the PC gaming market is also in decline. Consoles are more popular than ever before, and the main growth in the gaming industry is on Linux, mainly through the Android distro. Closed source companies sell expensive solutions that introduce features that have been self-evident in Linux for years (e.g. streaming from a PC to a post-PC device), and that never work as well as all-Linux solutions that are free and open source. The PC gaming market right now, is pretty much just a matter of Windows-only AAA titles, which are basically mostly Console ports for PC, and most AAA title games, focus on console features instead of PC features, with things like game controller focus, auto-aim, social gaming network functionality, and DLC-based business models, but the titles that come out, are always the same game with different maps and some different graphics features, if even that. Just like the Windows-PC productivity market, the Windows-PC gaming market is already dead in the water, it's going nowhere.
The Anglo-American world is very slow to react, because they don't have the extra costs of non-English speaking regions when using Microsoft-Windows and closed source commercial applications for that. If I had to provide 20 people with MS-Windows Pro, and with MS-Office and Adobe CC and cloud synchronization functionality that wouldn't suck, with extra language packs and proofing tools for let's say only the 6 most used languages in Europe, that would be an investment of over 20.000 EUR per annum on software that performs less, is less secure and less reliable than free open source software. Add to that the fact that trainings for closed source software are more expensive than trainings for open source software, and the loss becomes even greater, add to that the loss in productivity, and the loss becomes a true factor in the ability of the company to compete, because the actual overhead of using closed source software is well over 150.000 EUR, and that's in a simulation just counting the "normal" down-time of Windows-based systems and closed source applications, not even counting the accidental down-time because of the frequent security issues, malware scans, driver problems, etc..., and only counting the "best-case" scenario productivity on closed source applications, which is never actually reached. That's just the reality of the business. It's just more efficient to pay the employees more, have them work with more efficient software and more modern hardware so that they can have a better work/life balance, have motivated employees, and have a better business. Software and computer technology can be a blessing for a business, but it can also be the ultimate destructive power. Microsoft did a lot of great work to become a blessing for business in the 1990's, but now, and in fact, since the year 2000, it's solely responsible for the decline of the PC market and the destruction of a lot of businesses and jobs. That means that "productivity" and "Microsoft" are not even terms that can be used in the same sentence any more. The sooner you break free of closed source, the more chances you have in business, it's as simple as that.