Five Netbooks Microsoft Has Crushed | Hacker News Reader

Five Netbooks Microsoft Has Crushed

networkworld.com

42 pointstc30 comments

Ugh, I'd have purchased a number of those with Ubuntu on them. I guess the demand for that's not high enough to be worthwhile.

Lack of demand isn't the same as MS crushing something, though. It's super common to segment software licenses based on hardware capabilities, and it's trickled down to the consumer level I guess.

Agreed. I just bought an Eeepc that has a dual core and 2gb of RAM, which as I read it falls afoul of the limits and presumably has a higher cost license. It was only $370, and while I realize that price was probably higher due to having windows on it, that didn't exactly kill the product... I still bought it. It's annoying, since I immediately formatted and put Easy Peasy on it anyway, but it's hard to find any ready-built machine without a bundled OS, so this is nothing new.

You should try to get a refund for the Windows license (see http://www.linux.com/archive/articles/59381).

Eee with dual core? Which model?

Oy, vey!

Use fatwallet.com next time -- netbooks are popular on there, and as the linux ones are cheaper, they're often mentioned.

It still (probably) won't come with your favorite distro, but at least it comes without the windows price gouge.

The Mini 9 was available with both.

I got a cheap refurb with XP for my girlfriend and just upgraded the RAM and hard drive myself. It's one screw -- they made it real easy.

Microsoft is the new Microsoft.

More seriously, I bought an ASUS netbook recently (Intel Atom, 1Gb ram, 160Gb hd) and I completely forgot that I was paying for the XP license, even though I intended to wipe the hd (as I did as soon as I was back home) and install gnu/Linux. Now I regret the purchase even more.

The fresh crop of ARM / OMAP3 netbooks coming out may be a release valve on some of the design pressure that Microsoft is exerting -- not just the gimped specs to run XP, but the bog-standard hardware that everyone uses.

http://www.alwaysinnovating.com/touchbook/ is pretty close to perfect for me, though I wish it had a lot more RAM, and booted off a standard mini-pci-e / SATA SSD.

I've looked at this space a bunch and even played around with building an ubuntu launcher: http://drop.io/piedesktop

The deb file is up there.

I think that the alternatives to windows work much better on these machines. The ubuntu Netbook Remix is very friendly for those inexperienced with Linux, and Jolicloud, which is really just an app installer platform for Ubuntu, takes a lot of the hassle out of using repositories for app identification and install.

This is all a lot of lead up to my belief that OS is mattering less and less. In fact 26% of survey respondents said they didn't care about Netbook OS as long as it "got them on the web." I think the hardware manufacturers are risk averse but really not watching the market and demand. Big startup opportunity I think...

I compiled a research survey here: http://drop.io/piedesktop/asset/netbook-market-research-over...

'In fact 26% of survey respondents said they didn't care about Netbook OS as long as it "got them on the web."'

You seem to understate your case.

In addition to that 26%, you have 21% that prefers Linux, and 7% who will take Linux if the price of the computer is $50 less. That sums to %54.

I think the big question, though, is how many of those will change their mind and return the computer once they try to install a program that only runs on Windows. Do they honestly know what they are getting into when they say they "don't care" about the OS? Maybe they don't care about the OS, but do care about a particular program they want to run, but don't understand that choice of OS might prevent them from running that program.

I think there are fewer and fewer apps that people need that are not cloud based. The only ones I can really think of for most consumers are the MS Office suite. Any most of these people will be happy with a cloud or open alternative if they give it a shot.

Especially given that most OS dependent apps (i.e. Photoshop) are not really practical for netbook processors limits.

Crime: Microsoft offers deep discounts on its OS to makers of low-spec computers.

Punishment: Some clown on the internet accuses them of "crushing" stuff.

I know that we're all supposed to hate Microsoft and all, but really, can't they even do something nice without everybody piling on them? So yeah, in order to give out a discount on low-spec machines, you need to draw a line somewhere. In a field as crowded as low-spec notebooks, chances are that line is going to be close to a few existing machines.

But really, it's just silly to pick a few of those machines that happen to be near the cutoff and pretend that somehow Microsoft decided to "crush" them.

It's a discount fer cryin' out loud. It's a good thing.

What would be the business sense in these restrictions?

I see the point with XP - Microsoft wants computers capable of using the latest and greatest to actually use the latest and greatest - but what's the point in the Windows 7 restrictions that the article mentioned?

Obviously, they see some sort of advantage, but I'm having a tough time seeing it.

Microsoft is not restricting whether or not their operating systems will run on the netbooks. They are only restricting whether or not a particular netbook will get a deep discount on the operating system. Netbooks are cheap enough that the full cost of Windows is significant compared to the hardware cost, so a netbook without the deep discount would need to compete with other laptops instead of other netbooks, effectively killing it.

One business reason for the discounts is market segmentation. Netbook purchasers have a different sensitivity to price than purchasers of full computers. By charging less, Microsoft may be able to sell more copies of Windows -- perhaps enough to make more total dollars than at the undiscounted price. This is also the reason why there are many different editions of Vista available at different prices.

Another business reason is to keep Linux from getting a toehold on the user desktop market. Price is the one obvious advantage of Linux, which is why it powered so many of the initial netbook offerings. By offering a steep discount only for cheap computers, Microsoft effectively defuses the threat, without cannibalizing its sales on more powerful systems.

Yea microsoft is just trying to maintain their image of being cheap.

Using the same logic, think of how many potential computers that Apple have 'crushed' by not allowing OS X on non-Apple hardware.

The article mentions that the Dell Mini 9 is on its way to retirement and available only with XP.

The Dell Vostro A90, however, is essentially a rebranded mini 9 for the enterprise and is available with either ubuntu or windows.

BTW, if you are interested in running os x on a netbook, I highly recommend it.

I used to think that Apple didn't have a good reason to enter the netbook space, but now I'm thinking otherwise when I read stuff like this.

It's not so much that Apple needs to be competing in the low end (they don't), but that if there's no alternative at those sizes based on the licensing issues, maybe there's an opportunity there.

Anyway, it would in fact seem that many netbook users are not exactly heavy users of local applications; classically they're mostly using the web and mail. And then, of course, the disadvantages of not having the Windows OS become much less.

What's the point of Windows on netbooks anyway? Last time I checked, OpenOffice.org and Firefox run the same on Linux as they do on Windows. (Oh, the window borders are a different color. I see.)

Ah, another "What's the point" comment, belying a blind ideology which blithely assumes that anyone using a netbook would have no need to run any Windows software such as, say, Office; clear evidence that said commenter does not have a job in the real world where OOo cannot possibly replace MSOffice, due to a massive investment in time and programming $, macros, VB code, and countless formatting and layout problems that OOo would introduce, not to mention the need to interoperate with the rest of the business world, and most home users.

If Office is that important to your work, why aren't you buying a quality system?

Me? I run a new Macbook Pro 17 (+ VMWare + Boot Camp + Win 7). But the sub-notebook class is attractive for way more than email. That's the whole point of having a machine that can run Windows. This would be like trying to sell as scooter that was banned from the freeways. Most people are going to pass it over for more practical models.

Scooters are banned from the freeways and they still sell. Not to people that want to drive them on the freeway, but to people that want to use them for their designed purpose.

So to be clear, you think the reason that people need Microsoft Windows on netbooks is because Microsoft Office doesn't have a documented and interoperable file format.

I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm just saying this is one of those malice/incompetence things when you should really lean towards malice. Blaming competitors (as it appears you are doing) is just mean, they've generally done a heroic job reverse engineering .doc to the point where they do a better job than Microsoft in some cases.

People want it. I believe the first of the netbooks were Linux. Then Microsoft got around to offering Windows on them, and they promptly took over the market.

Microsoft: Helping technology to evolve!

Good one!

Myabe I'm biased (working with Microsoft tech), but if Microsoft indeed "crushed" these netbooks it would only be because of the failing of competing operating systems.

Myself, I use Ubuntu on my netbook and have no issue with that (since I use it mostly for terminals and Firefox), but the current releases aren't exactly polished diamonds either.

If Microsoft were one day to go away and die, I wonder what all these people who constantly blame them for absolutely everything between the heavens and earth would do when it turned out the world didn't automatically turn into a perfect, flawless dream-world.

If Microsoft were to "go away and die" it would be because their competitors were, in fact, "polished diamonds".

I always thought people don't use non-Windows cause of software. For example I have a friend that wants to use Ubuntu but also wants to use itunes. I'm sure a lot more people want to play games, use microsoft office, etc, too. Frankly if microsoft were to go away and die, then we'd have more software geared towards linux/os x.

The way I see microsoft, they're very manipulative. For example, instead of making the most powerful video game console, they pay off developers for exclusive titles or game features. I think in the OS department they exhibit the same strategy where they aren't doing the simple make the best product so it will sell the most strategy. While it may be an effective strategy for a business to be sly and manipulative, the consumer gets screwed. For the same reason I hate cell phone companies. Why can't they just have us pay the actual value for the phone and charge a fairer monthly fee?

So it would be great if microsoft would die. We'd have less manipulative proprietary crap and more innovation.

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