The offensive Microsoft anti-Linux netbook offensive

By David M Williams
Tuesday, 21 April 2009 20:52

Technology

Ever since the unexpected advent of netbooks – who would have expected low-powered computing to be such a winner – Microsoft has been working to push Linux out. Unlike Vista, Windows 7 will run effectively on a netbook. However, Microsoft have reminded us they’re a proprietary company with the offensive Windows 7 Starter Edition being limited to three apps only. Are they trying to insult us or what?

I don’t need to tell you the history of the netbook; you know that in late 2007 ASUS launched a tiny 7” featherweight laptop with paltry hardware specs. In this day and age of ever-increasing “minimum specs” for successive versions of Windows who’d have expected somebody to come out and say, “Hey, what consumers really want is less power?”

Yet, the original ASUS Eee Linux PC was a massive sales success. So much so it spawned a whole craze with no end of competitors wanting a piece of the pie.

The netbook explosion proved that these days the killer app is mobility, portability and frankly just plain being online anywhere.

Linux had the edge; after all, netbooks were cheap. Sure, not so cheap you’d find them in the impulse purchase shelves at supermarkets while waiting in line at the checkouts but certainly cheap enough that you could justify buying one without too much effort and with little buyer’s remorse later on.

Netbooks were cost-effective enough that they put computing power into the hands of students, the elderly and others who might not otherwise obtain a laptop or desktop computer.

To keep the price down manufacturers obviously used hardware components that were far from the bleeding edge and they used software that added nothing to the total cost. Linux was a natural choice; its zero dollar licensing was a natural fit for netbooks.

Microsoft wasn’t so happy with this situation and made a dramatic u-turn on their efforts to talk up Windows Vista. Suddenly, Windows XP was back in vogue (because there’s no way you’d get Vista to run in any acceptable way on a netbook!) To the chagrin of many system builders Microsoft slashed the price of a Windows XP license for netbooks only to the low, low price of $15 to compete.

The imminent next-gen Windows operating system, Windows 7, is not far away. Some expect it will be released this year. This time around the minimum specs haven’t jumped but in fact Windows 7 has been designed so it will run effectively on such low-end hardware as netbooks.

In fact, Microsoft have even gone so far as to announce that if you’re a netbook user, there is a version of Windows 7 just for you.

And in so doing they have insulted the entire user base in one fell swoop. Here’s what Windows 7: Starter Edition offers you, and personally, I find it somewhat offensive.