Stan Beer
Friday, 01 May 2009 15:48
Opinion and Analysis
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Microsoft's
newest operating system Windows 7 will leave much of the burgeoning
netbook market open for Linux because of its relatively large
footprint. This was confirmed to iTWire by a local Microsoft executive
today, although she did not spell it out in those words.
The latest guidance of the minimum system requirements for Windows
7, announced with the RC version of the operating system, indicate that
the new operating system will only work on high-end netbooks with specs
approaching that of notebooks.
The requirements of a 1GHz
processor, 1 GB RAM, 16 GB of disk and DirectX 9 graphics device all
easily exceed the specs of many entry level netbooks.
In fact,
they exceed the specs of the Eee PC 1000HD with a Celeron 900MHz
processor - yet this writer is running an early Windows 7 Beta build
with reasonable performance. Either Microsoft has got the minimum specs
wrong or Windows RC needs more power than the Beta version.
A chat with local Microsoft management provided only vague answers to this question.
According
to Sarah Vaughan, Windows Business Group Lead at Microsoft Australia,
Windows 7 is indeed designed to work with netbooks.
"Windows 7
has been designed to run really well on netbooks. There's no limitation
on which edition someone can use. So whether they want the Starter
Edition, Premium Home Professional or Ultimate, these editions will run
on a netbook that has those specifications," said Ms Vaughan.
"There
hasn't been any scaled down OS thinking about the hardware that's
available in the marketplace from a netbook point of view.
"Looking
at when the netbooks first hit the market there wasn't lot of options
or choices. There was the Asus. In the last 18 months, the number and
capability has just shot through the roof."
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