Netbook Scoop

The Eee PC 2G Surf Was Introduced in January 2008

Back in January of this year, the netbooks available were almost exclusively Asus Eee PCs.   In the beginning, they all ran Linux.

This trend worried Microsoft immensely.  This little niche was gaining a lot of popularity.  What would happen if customers found out that Linux could actually be used by normal people?  With Vista already unpopular in many circles, there could be serious consequences if people learned that Linux actually provided the functionality that they needed.

In fact, back in March, The Guardian posted an article titled “Why falling Flash prices threaten Microsoft” that touched on this issue.    This paragraph hits the issues confronting Microsoft at that time.

Looking through the thousands of postings in eeeuser.com’s user forums, the same comments keep coming up: it’s so small, the build quality is high, it boots up quickly, it just works. In fact, it’s hard to find many negative points. Most are about the placing of the right-hand shift key, the small size of the keyboard, the limited battery life and the slightly awkward mousepad. One thing that is almost never mentioned as a problem is the fact that the Eee PC is running not Windows, but a variant of GNU/Linux.

So what is a monopolist to do?

Microsoft could not press netbook manufacturers to pre-install Vista.  Netbooks lack the hardware to run Vista, which requires a fast processor and lots of memory.  Incorporating this additional hardware, plus the cost of a Vista license could easily double the cost to manufacture a netbook.

The problem confronting Microsoft was, not only did Linux perform very nicely on netbook hardware, but the cost to netbook manufacturers was zero.

Microsoft actually had an OS that ran well on netbook hardware: Windows XP.  The problem was that Microsoft had already announced the retirement of Windows XP.  This was a critical step for Microsoft, because to meet their revenue targets, they needed people to pay to upgrade from XP to Vista.  Unlike previous versions of Windows, customers were not flocking to Vista.  Microsoft was hoping to force upgrades by ending support for XP.  Ending support meant that Microsoft would no longer provide security and bug fixes.

But customers were not happy about Microsoft’s plans to kill XP.  In fact, InfoWorld created an online petition begging Microsoft to continue selling and supporting XP that was “signed” by over 200,000 people.

Microsoft solved their problem by announcing a special extension for Windows XP Home Edition to be installed on Ultra Low-cost PCs (ULPCs).  This program limited the hardware on which XP Home could be sold.  It also significantly lowered the cost the netbook makers paid for the OS.

As a result, Windows XP was introduced as an option on nearly every notebook.  By year end, many netbook had eliminated Linux as an option.

Here is an example that demonstrates the current situation.  For Christmas, I wanted to buy a netbook as a gift for my wife.  As many of you know from my earlier articles, we haven’t had a computer with a Microsoft OS in our home for 5 years or more.  So I was looking for Linux-based netbook.  The only other major requirement was that it had to be pink.

Pink Aspire One

Guess what?  All of the pre-configured netbooks that are available in pink were packaged with Windows XP.  I could not find a single pink netbook that had a Linux OS.

If I had not waited until the last minute, I could have custom ordered a Dell Inspiron Mini 9 in pink.  But, in the end, I ordered a pink Acer Aspire One with Windows XP.  Of course, the first thing I did when it arrived was to load Linux.

So, in summary,  in less than a year, the netbook market segment has gone from exclusively belonging to Linux to being dominated by Microsoft.  And, once again, I am buying computers and paying Microsoft for an operating system I don’t want or need.