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Microsoft redefining the term 'Netbook'

Microsoft has announced that the new Windows 7 (a.k.a. Windows Vista Try-It-Again) will also run on the new Netbook category of small, low-cost laptops. This will probably mean that M$ will spend a couple hundred million bucks in marketing trying to 'redefine' the Netbook, since the new Window 7 Netbook wil require 2GB RAM, a 1.5Ghz+ processor, special DRM-enabled hardware and cost $500 minimum (with Vista er 7, taking up about $60-70 of that pricetag).

A classic case of M$ trying to market its way out of a mess it got itself in. I wonder how they will respond at the deluge of sub-$100 Netbooks with a non-Intel processor and no-BIOS in them, these will leave Microsoft in the dust and increase the marketshare of Linux to 30-40% of all PC's sold, easily. It will be nigh impossible for M$ to out-market and out-flank these. My guess is they'll try a last ditch effort to put Windows CE on these things, but this will result in poor customer reviews as the software will not be compatible with the normal Windows programs, effectively splitting the franchise in two incompatible camps which will also lead to it ruin.

Reply to
Dave U. Random
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WinXP Home is an appropriate OS for a netbook, and I'd expect them to market that by whatever name. If the price difference isn't much, people will prefer to have familiar applications like Word available to them.

Who knows, it may even help USENET posters to add crlfs.

Reply to
Spehro Pefhany

The problem is that Microsoft gave up the "familiar applications" advantage by pushing new stuff that nobody knows how to use.

The OpenOffice on my (Xandros) EeePC is a lot more comfortable for most users of microsoft office than the that office 2007 (aka, office for Vista) they are forcing you to buy on PC's nowadays.

Reply to
cs_posting

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I was also hit by the news a few days back. I believe there is a lot more to it than the marketing talk. Clearly the public did not accept vista - I hear it works so the reason must be the new restrictions it enforces. And now this is another go at it. Likely they will make the hardware unable to run any other OS - by keeping large parts of it secret, like they did on the xbox and on the PS3, for example - and all activity will be remotely visible and controllable. Obviously they cannot make them just plain terminals, the server power and bandwidth this will take makes it an impractical idea; this is why they will put 2G RAM (!! and they say they were making disk operating systems, not diskless ones... read once and keep cached if you want it to be usable) and GHz range processors inside. But all stuff will be encrypted, controlled, you name it. Clearly this is the plan; it remains to be seen how they will manage to block other, usable hardware from the market (no doubt they will manage that like they did before). And of course this must go way above MS, they are just doing as they are told - if anything they are no fools when it comes to making cash.

Didi

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Reply to
Didi

Glad it's not just me. I don't use Windows that much but a couple of months ago I encountered the new Word and found it slightly disorientating. When you start muttering things like "Where the

**** is the File menu?" you know something is wrong. 
--
Andrew Smallshaw
andrews@sdf.lonestar.org
Reply to
Andrew Smallshaw

The alternative possibility is that the hardware manufacturers get together with the main software vendors and decide to abandon Microsoft entirely.

Reply to
cs_posting

Perhaps, let's hope for the best, but so far they do not seem to have a really free market will. The key parts - processors and peripheral chips - are practically under central control, whether they call it more than one company or not. And they make things more and more secret, clearly there is a fear of losing control somewhere pretty high. Fear for a good reason, evolution so far has been unforgiving to progress blockers - however on a timescale which might be well beyond that we are interested in....

Didi

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Reply to
Didi

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