The average person over fifty will have spent 5 years waiting in queues
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Netbooks eat into Microsoft revenues
NETBOOKS MAY BE little, but they seem to be causing big problems for Microsoft, which blames them for a drop in first-quarter earnings and decreased revenues, despite increased sales of Microsoft operating systems.
Chris Liddell, the chief financial Vole, reckons that the cheap little laptops which tend to run cheaper versions of Windows are to blame for the decreased revenues, but says it may still be too early to know whether netbooks will cannibalise sales of Microsoft’s OS, or create a new market.
In a report for market research outfit, Citigroup, Global Markets Analyst Brent Thill claimed, "Netbooks crash the party." He said they would be a "key category to watch in (fiscal 2009) as overall profitability will be impacted by (Microsoft's) success in this segment."
The report goes on to note that netbooks are not only growing at a steady pace, their sales are literally blowing the roof off any analyst expectations. Sales of the little lappies are set to reach 11 million in 2008 and shoot up to 41 million by 2012, an outstanding growth level considering only half a million netbooks were sold last year.
The little Eee PC from Asus as well as Acer’s Aspire have counted for approximately a third of total growth in the PC market in 2008, a record by anyone’s standards. And in Europe, where wireless providers are handing out free netbooks with service contracts, the little machines are flying off shelves.
So, how does this affect Microsoft? Well, for starters, a full 25 per cent of all netbooks run a Linux OS instead of a Microsoft one. Secondly, because Vista is too demanding as in terms of systems requirements and memory guzzling, most netbooks which do run Windows are running the watered down version of XP, XP Home.
Microsoft was recently forced to extend the availability of XP Home, at least until mid 2010, precisely because netbook makers refused to bung Vista on their systems, saying they would hold out until Windows 7 tipped up.
Because XP Home licences are so much cheaper than Vista licences, the Redmond Giant is losing out. And if Microsoft really does want to bury Linux, when Windows 7 comes out, the version for netbooks will have to be a cheaper one, lowering Microsoft’s margins.
"You can't charge 100 bucks for an operating system on a machine that costs $299," IDC boffin, Bob O'Donnell told the San Francisco Chronicle. Liddell seems well aware of this but points out that, for most people, netbooks are not their primary machine, noting "If you look at the price points of some of the netbooks, they are $300 to $400. Clearly that is attractive for a lot of people in terms of adding a third or fourth PC to their homes. So it will affect the margins, but some of that will be incremental growth that we wouldn't otherwise have had."
Microsoft will have time to think about ways to deal with the situation, because the way it looks from here, netbooks aren’t going away any time soon. µ
L’Inq
San
Francisco Chronicle
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Mine is the Everex SA 2053T, at 11.1" it's a trifle larger than those itty bitty netbooks but has a trifle more power: it's got the dual core T2080 at 1.73GHz, 100GB hard drive, DVD burner, I bumped it to 2GB of ram (cost me another $30). It came with two batteries, the tiny portable one good for a couple hours and the larger one good for somewhat longer, I guess I could bring both with me if I went somewhere -- the whole thing only cost $600 Cdn at Tiger Direct, that's approximately $500 USD nowadays. The kicker is, it runs Vista Home Premium, so I don't need to have the pokey little netbook & the more powerful desk computer for "real" tasks, I guess I have both in one.

There that's convergence for ya!!!

(Sadly, it rendered my Nokia 770 useless so I ditched it on eBay for $100 -- people say that Linux is rock-solid, but I found it more problematic than Vista.)
OEM Vista Home Premium is the same price as XP Home from all of my suppliers, which is part of why my store still ships 90% XP machines (including the Vista Business "downgrades". If there is a price difference in license cost to ASUS, MSI, etc, it is not filtering down to ue little guys in the regular channel.
Oh come on, stop being stupid! vLite vista, remove all the drivers that you just dont need, remove media centre, dvd maker, all of windows help, speech input, again all the stuff you just dont need. Remove system restore etc! Vista install disk now fits on a CD with room to spare, and the whole install is 2.3Gb for a full working vista, with the aero theme! It runs perfectly on my eee 900, so stop saying things don't work, when they clearly do.
Freeman said,

"Anyone can live on a Netbook running Vista."


Put the crack pipe down, my friend. Vista does not run on the current crop of netbooks at an acceptable pace. I have tried it. The machine you bought, a Acer Aspire 5315, is not even close to being a netbook. Please get that thought out of your head. Thank you and peace out.
Microsoft is just trying to find a scapegoat for less than stellar Vista sales and lost market share to Apple and Open Sauce.
My netbook runs WinXP. The fact is, if it wasn't for this netbook, I would've bought exactly zero Microsoft OS licences in the last year.
they must have sony batteries!
Netbooks might be the thin edge of the Linux wedge.
Someone at Vole isn't paying attention. 

Last year, I bought a $398 Compaq Desktop PC from Walmart that ran Vista Basic until I upgraded it to Vista Business. This year I bought an Acer Aspire 5315 Laptop from Walmart that cost me under $450. It runs Vista Basic. Anyone can live on a Netbook running Vista. As long as it can print to a printer and runs Open Office, it can easily function as a primary machine just as my low cost PC and laptop have. The economy is such that Netbooks and low cost PC's are what people will buy if they can. A 25% marketshare on Netbooks is huge for Linux. Between that and Apple, Microsoft has some competition. They're just nervous about having to compete for our dollars.
Slim, low power, lightweight and inexpensive machines bad for company behind bloated, expensive, inefficient "operating system". Giggle.

Vista's a sack of poop, whichever angle you approach it from, not just on netbooks. However, the fact that you have to cut it down so that it does fewer useful things than its predecessor, with even poorer grace.. well, it's pretty telling. The failboat is loaded with crates of Vista OEM.

Netbooks (and the spinoff cheap/slim desktops) have been brilliant in a lot of ways- dispelling the myth that you need a fricken' monster computer to browse the web/send email/write documents. In terms of size, noise, cost and power consumption, they are a no-brainer for the user. Guess Microsoft will have to rethink their "grab your ankles, here comes the monster" attitude, if they want to retain market share. They might actually have to consider shipping products that suck less than vista.

(Personally, running umbongo on my eee901, and loving it, nippy and rock solid- does what I need)

Happi taims. Nice article, cheers Inq.