Netbooks Take a Bite Out of Windows Profits

twitter writes "Analysts at Bloomberg noticed the tumble in Microsoft's traditional software sales last quarter and blamed it on netbooks: 'The devices, which usually cost less than $500, are the fastest-growing segment of the personal-computer industry — a trend that's eating into Microsoft's revenue. Windows sales fell short of forecasts last quarter and the company cut growth projections for the year, citing the lower revenue it gets from netbooks. When makers of the computers do use Windows, they typically opt for older and cheaper versions of the software. Equipping Linux on a computer costs about $5, compared with $40 to $50 for XP and about $100 for Vista, according to estimates by Jenny Lai, a Taipei-based analyst at CLSA Ltd.' This is why MS declared war on the segment last year and palm top computers in previous years. While they may have successfully tamed the Asus EEE PC, they can't hold back everyone who wants to make a buck on cheap hardware and free software. Analysts have predicted the fall of MS's business model when computers break below $250/unit retail. We are there now, and it has shown in the bottom line."

Comments

The troll, the legend

[Anonymous Coward]

This is what twitter has been doing to Slashdot for most of the year:

http://slashdot.org/~SockDisclosure/journal/214377

Advocacy in action:

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1014837&cid=25591469

Disagree with the troll and find yourself in his troll list, where
he also documents death threats for the win.

Bragging with buddies about how "M$" monitors the way he creates accounts on Slashdot:

http://boycottnovell.com/2008/11/08/irc-log-07112008/#tNov%2007%2021:19:07

Treatment of people who revealed what he was doing:

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=993447&cid=25494651

Trascending Slashdot and bringing everyone down by association:

http://www.osnews.com/conversation/483454a1/Do_you_get_tired_of_the_Web_Hype_
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-users/2008-August/154926.html
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2933313#post347878554
http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2007/11/06/5924058.aspx#6051569

Original submission, with original puerile style:

"Analysts at Bloomberg noticed the tumble in M$'s traditional software sales last quarter and blamed it on netbooks:

The devices, which usually cost less than $500, are the fastest-growing segment of the personal-computer industry -- a trend that's eating into Microsoft's revenue. Windows sales fell short of forecasts last quarter and the company cut growth projections for the year, citing the lower revenue it gets from netbooks. When makers of the computers do use Windows, they typically opt for older and cheaper versions of the software.

Equipping Linux on a computer costs about $5, compared with $40 to $50 for XP and about $100 for Vista, according to estimates by Jenny Lai, a Taipei-based analyst at CLSA Ltd.

This is why, M$ declared war on the segment last year and palm top computers in previous years. While they may have successfully tamed the Asus EEE PC but, they can't hold back everyone who wants to make a buck on cheap hardware and free software. Analysts have predicted the fall of M$'s business model when computers break below $250/unit retail. We are there now, and it has shown in the bottom line."

Welcome to the trolled by twitter club, timothy.

Re:The troll, the legend

[hairyfeet]

While twitter may be a PITA,and his talking to himself with sockpuppets is just....well,it is pretty obvious the guy needs mental help, this does point out something I've been saying for a long time: MSFT is pricing their goods WAY too freaking high! $99 for XP Home? $199 for XP Pro? Is there ANYBODY else who charges THAT much for software THAT old? The MSRP retail hasn't changed since it came out in '01! And then they total crazy BS of Vista,with its,what? Six different versions? And the cheapest one is STILL $100? Totally freaking crazy.

If MSFT doesn't want to get their asses handed to them they better learn to accept normal profit margins on their software. Not to mention giving the public what they want. I mean,have you EVER heard of any other company killing off a product that was still selling quite well after 7 years? Most companies would kill for a product like that!

Mark my words: The netbooks and nettops are going to take up a serious chunk of the lowend. Because with even a half ass GPU added(so they can play High Def vids) they will do everything your average Joe wants to do with his machine. Last year when I walked through the college I saw full size laptops everywhere. Now I see very few full size while everyone has a netbook sitting on their lap. If MSFT doesn't learn to take a normal profit like everyone else then the custom Linux distros like the EEE Xandros(which is the most popular model at the local college) are going to seriously kick their ass. After all,they have a couple of years old desktop at home to run their Windows software on,so why should they pay so much more just for an old MSFT product?

Re:The troll, the legend

[RiotingPacifist]

But Microsoft don't make much money on home sales or oem sales (its something like $10-$20) they make their money on corporate sales, which are unaffected by the netbook trend. So this article IS just twitter bullshit.

And this isn't the 1st time timothy has been caught.

Re:The troll, the legend

[Zontar The Mindless]

Guess what? Some of us have lives, and recognise the fact that, hey, it's just a website. If you don't like it, find a different one. I hear that there are several to choose from on this Internet thing.

Re:The troll, the legend

[dokebi]

Monopoly, meet perceived value.

Before MaBell was broken up, only Bell System phones could be connected to the phone line. And they charged arms and legs for that phone. Why? One, you didn't have alternatives, and two, if they charged too little, then customers wouldn't appreciate the service as much.

The price of something has very little to do with cost, especially in software. How much is an accounting program worth it to you? How much is it worth to a business? What if that software cost $20,000, and runs only on Windows with no alternatives? $200 is cheap in comparison.

Add to this the fact that OS is bundled with the computer (no direct means of perceiving the cost), it's very wise to set the retail price high. See, our product must be good to cost that much.

As much as I like GNU/Linux (3/4 of my boxes boot Linux), for most people, it's worth paying the $100 -$200 to get an OS that runs all the other popular software.

Re:The troll, the legend

[negRo_slim]

MSFT is pricing their goods WAY too freaking high! $99 for XP Home? $199 for XP Pro

I'm going to have to agree with you... I remember when I went down to finally buy a copy of Windows. My copy of 2000 was burnt for me at a repair shop in Beaverton, Ore.. The days before WGA were great... And that's what I call customer service! Either way XP Home was a big chunk of the money I had budgeted for upgradery, and lo and behold it didn't support dynamic disks, something I had nearly forgotten about. I really would of appreciated a little warning before losing all my data. So needless to say I don't buy Microsoft products anymore. A fucking warning, a note on the box, a real fucking manual. Anything to justify that price. I could give two shits about holographic stickers and CD labels.

That being said I believe the article is regarding the cost of the hardware to support the OS. More memory for XP, even more for Vista, etc..

Re:The troll, the legend

[UnknowingFool]

I mean,have you EVER heard of any other company killing off a product that was still selling quite well after 7 years? Most companies would kill for a product like that!

Some companies do that when they feel that they need to make progress and their current product is holding back. Apple did it when they killed their iPod mini line even though it was their best selling line of iPods. Apple could see that flash was the wave of the future for smaller MP3 players and moved towards it. Unlike MS, Apple provided a better product at the same price. MS provided a product that was superior in some ways and inferior in others. However the cost was higher factoring hardware requirements. For those upgrading on older machines, Vista was not an improvement.

Re:The troll, the legend

[Lumpy]

Average joe does not care about high def video.
Average joe cares that his DVD quality looks better than regular.

Therefore give them medicore 3d and 1/2 way video acceleration and you got a winner. Mine so far has played everything I can throw at it.. It freaked on a 1080p uncompressed video, but then I know of quad core machined that freak on that one.

Re:The troll, the legend

[westlake]

Before MaBell was broken up, only Bell System phones could be connected to the phone line. And they charged arms and legs for that phone. Why? One, you didn't have alternatives, and two, if they charged too little, then customers wouldn't appreciate the service as much.

.

AT&T in its prime delivered the best telephone service in the world - and, because your phone was leased - not sold - it was built to last.

It is almost trivially easy to find handsome - and still functional - examples from the 1930s, the 1920s, and even earlier.

Re:The troll, the legend

[mabhatter654]

Exactly, the retail price is propped up. Partly because when you buy retail you actually get support, but mostly because the high price props up Microsoft's real customers, the OEMS. Why pay $200 for an OS when you can get a "deal" on a $500 desktop with that $200 OS "free"?

The second effect since Linux is on the scene, is that the high price of Windows (but PC users get it for "free") make Linux look like a bad, cheap product when it's free or even $50. Why would you want to use a $50 OS when Dell includes a $200 OS for FREE with it's computers!!!! Because new PC owners get such a good deal, anybody not going along with Microsoft's plan is stupid and clearly can't see good value.

Re:The troll, the legend

[blair1q]

Compatibility has value, and those are still the most-compatible operating systems there are.

Compatible with each other and with all of the installed copies of Windows in the world.

As Windows' installed-base share erodes, this compatibility factor will decline, and the price Microsoft can command for it will be reduced.

Time for Microsoft to start thinking about using its development and marketing might to do something game-changing. Something that reverses the bleed to other OSes. (But isn't as lame as .net and C#.)

Re:The troll, the legend

[blair1q]

Don't bet on that lasting.

I'm looking at getting a netbook for portable use for work. It's a brilliant idea for bringing a real computer wherever I need to be without any "lug" factor.

And if it works for me, I will be recommending that the IT department do it for everyone.

Price of a cell phone, power of a business-class desktop. And you can bet IT will be insisting on Windows, not Linux, on those netbooks, so they're compatible with the enterprise system in place.

I can only change one form of corporate inertia at a time, and I bet that's a common thing. Microsoft could buy a lot of time by selling this model to its existing business-customer base.

Re:The troll, the legend

[Chaos Incarnate]

Since you went from 2000 to XP Home, you weren't upgrading, you had to reinstall from scratch. If you're doing that, you're beyond warning notes anyways.

Re:The troll, the legend

[hairyfeet]

Yeah,nice idea,but MSFT purposely boned the netbooks so as not to take business from their Vista Business offering. XP Home lacks AD login,most of the Group Policy settings,etc. See this link for a list of differences. Pretty worthless in a business setting. On the other hand the Xandros EEE is just Xandros with a different shell. Now I don't know if they based it on Xandros Home or Business,but I can tell you from experience that Xandros Business plays REAL nice with Windows server based networks. I've never had any trouble logging onto an AD domain with Xandros Business,in fact it would log in faster than my XP partition would.

So if all you are wanting to do with the laptop is work on the road you'll be fine. But if you are going to be logging into the AD Domain at work you'll have to install XP Pro on it or one of the Linux distros like Xandros Business that plays nice with Windows Domains.

Re:The troll, the legend

[JAlexoi]

FYI: For most, average, customers MS Windows is the "computer thingy" that came with their $500 "box". And you are talking about appreciation...
Businesses are another issue, but that may be changing... And not all businesses really need Windows to run their software...

Re:The troll, the legend

[eltaco]

yeah, as much as I'd like to argue with you and call your pets and loved ones names, you're basically right.
piracy behaviour, in some ways, supports and correlates to what you're saying - if people can pirate a program that costs 500 bucks (vista something great corp does magic version) or 'pirate' a program that costs nothing to begin with (generally anything oss), people will usually choose the program that costs "teh bazillions", even if the costly version is vastly inferior to the free alternative (or vice versa). it's all about the price tag, not the functionality.
for instance, if bentleys were suddenly sold for 100 bucks, who would still buy them?
and if you had the choice to have a ferrari or a bentley for free (as in yummy beer) and then sell it on the second hand market (previous conditions apply), which one would you choose?
the business world might have a differential opinion, but this is mostly because corps usually go the legal way. having said that, guess who subsidizes the major players.

Re:The troll, the legend

[drinkypoo]

But Microsoft don't make much money on home sales or oem sales (its something like $10-$20) they make their money on corporate sales, which are unaffected by the netbook trend. So this article IS just twitter bullshit.

Why you are wrong: Microsoft gained its hold on the Server space because users were familiar with Windows 3. You could get a server OS which looked like your desktop OS and ran many of the same programs. Apple gained what hold it had "back in the day" through its school programs. Users who became familiar with the Mac in school tended to want to keep using it throughout their life; whether it's better or not is an argument for another story, because it is well-known that retraining is harder than training, and the users tend to stick with what they know. If users buy devices on a feature set, find that they run Linux, and then find that they are more reliable than their Windows-based counterparts and cost less to boot (literally, ha ha) then they will accept Linux and it will gain further inroads in business.

Those who forget the lessons of history are doomed to look like an idiot on slashdot. Comment moderation is no defense - it is well-known that idiocy is no bar to moderation on slashdot.

Re:The troll, the legend

[drinkypoo]

I mean,have you EVER heard of any other company killing off a product that was still selling quite well after 7 years?

Car companies do it as SOP. They take a perfectly good car and instead of just updating the power or the styling as necessary, they redo the whole thing and tell you that you need the new one.

Why do they do this? Because people will buy it. Microsoft did the same thing, and while the clueful parts of the market have rejected Vista, people still buy it since it comes bundled with new computers, and people will often just toss out a computer and buy a new one when it becomes stunk up with malware, because it can actually be cheaper to buy a newer, faster computer than to take it in to the shop to have it cleaned. Thus, the "sales" numbers make Microsoft look successful, which is all that is necessary to keep it moving in the stock market.

Re:The troll, the legend

[badkarmadayaccount]

Guys, I think we need a windows-proof laptop. POWER, SPARC, maybe PA-RISC?

Re:The troll, the legend

[RiotingPacifist]

learn to read: my comment was a reply to

MSFT is pricing their goods WAY too freaking high! $99 for XP Home? $199 for XP Pro? Is there ANYBODY else who charges THAT much for software THAT old? The MSRP retail hasn't changed since it came out in '01! And then they total crazy BS of Vista,with its,what? Six different versions? And the cheapest one is STILL $100? Totally freaking crazy.

If your too retarded to read then you are the one who looks like an idiot trolling on slashdot.

I said nothing about the effect of home market share on corporate/server use, getting users familiar with only their products is they key to their stronghold, its why they allow piracy to run rampant and why they cut deals with poor countries to virtually give their stuff away. But that is all irrelevant, and unless you were desperate to troll Microsoft you would have seen that too, my point was that the price of putting windows on a netbook IS $10-$20 (for an OEM) not $100-$200!

Re:The troll, the legend

[RiotingPacifist]

No flash and no windows compatibility. But i personally see those as features

Why make it more complicated than it really is?

[schnikies79]

The economy (U.S. and the world) has slowed. Why would Microsoft be bucking the trend?

Re:Why make it more complicated than it really is?

[jonbryce]

Microsoft is regarded as a utility stock these days - in a recession, people still need computers as they aren't the luxury item they once were.

Also China and India are much bigger than USA and Europe, and those markets are still growing, at a slightly slower rate than before. That ought to more than counteract any decline in western economies.

Re:Why make it more complicated than it really is?

[Yvan256]

They never followed the standards before, why would they start now?

Re:Why make it more complicated than it really is?

[symbolset]

Lots of talk of late about moving to less frequent refresh cycles. The bathtub graph of failures is more like a hockey stick, and the PCs in place have the processing power to meet people's needs throughout the current fiscal difficulty.

Software support is of course an issue, but there are no fixes for this either on offer or projected through FY2011.

Re:Why make it more complicated than it really is?

[RiotingPacifist]

Because twitter and his sockpuppets fancied a troll and its Saturday so there wasn't much else to stick up!

Re:Why make it more complicated than it really is?

[rhyder128k]

That might be true to an extent but surely people are going to make hardware and software last longer when money is tight? Some offices simply replace a machine once it goes wrong if it's more than a couple of years old. I dare say that a 1Ghz PC with XP (or even better GNU/Linux) would suffice as a workstation for 80% of office workers. Making the current crop of machines last for another five years might give companies a chance of riding out the down turn, or at worst, save some cash.

Even firms that need top of the range PCs can retask them as general office machines after a couple of years rather than buying a new batch. All of this costs MS revenue.

I wonder if these changes will cause MS to step up the lock-in+automatic obsolescence aspects of their software?

Re:Why make it more complicated than it really is?

[Lumpy]

Because it really is a part of a trend. I just got one of the el-cheapo Acer Aspire one. It's got a 160gig drive, a dual core processor, a 1024X400 screen that is brighter than any laptop I have ever seen (LED instead of the crappy CFL as well.

This thing is really fast, really small, and cost me less than $350.00 at WALMART of all places. It does more and has better specs than my new Dell laptop from 2 years ago and cost 1/4 the price.

Microsoft better be scared, because the high end one like this has XP on it and not vista. and that is how it was marketed to me, "you want these laptops because they do not come with vistal.. Vista is something you want to stay away from."

Yes it's walmart, but even if the minimum wage know nothing about computers sales guy at walmart is telling people that vista sucks, then it is hurting microsoft... And I bought the high end aspire one.. most of them come with linux (a variant that sucks) and with ubuntu having a distro coming out just for these tiny pc's that is brain dead easy to install from a thumb drive, I can see joe sixpack installing ubuntu on his new pocket sized laptop he got for cheap.

Re:Why make it more complicated than it really is?

[David Gerard]

Ubuntu and FreeBSD work wonderfully here on my PIII 1.2GHz laptop and PII 450MHz household server (with KDE for when I'm desktopping on it). Mac OS X 10.4 works wonderfully on our 400MHz G3, 400MHz G4 and 800MHz G4.

Really - this is all a Microsoft problem, because their software is mediocre.

Re:Why make it more complicated than it really is?

[negRo_slim]

a 1024X400 screen

I trust it has a mighty scroll wheel!

Re:Why make it more complicated than it really is?

[Anonymous Coward]

That screen would be 1024x600, and the processor is only a single core with hyperthreading. I should think that your Dell laptop from two years ago has a faster processor if nothing else.

Re:Why make it more complicated than it really is?

[Lumpy]

Thanks for the correction on the screen, and that means the sales guy lied to me, each me to not read the full online specs. Time to go kill a sales guy, Nahh. for this cheap I really dont care. It plays Command and Conquer Generals as well as bzflag incredibly well. I've been kicking a coworkers butt in operations meeting bzflag tourneys for a week now.

It feels quicker, but then that could be the effects of a 2 year old XP install in that laptop as well. I have not reformatted and reinstalled that work laptop even though I have been planning on it.

Anyways, I imaged the drive and blew out the XP install to install ubuntu... other than losing the wifi switch function it's 100% and I found an article in ubuntu forums that talks about how to make that switch function again...

Re:Why make it more complicated than it really is?

[Cowmonaut]

I'll add to parent's post with another point:

It seems to me that hardware vendors for PC components have been so competitive compared to software creators that they've shot themselves in the foot by making such powerful devices.

Let's face it. Several things have caused software development to take a steep nose dive in terms of innovation over the years. Some blame lies with business practices such as MicroSoft's well known "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish" or even the way Apple bans competing applications on their iPhone. Toss in the ridiculous number of issues with software patents we so love to comment on here and elsewhere and you can readily see just how much is holding software innovations back!

Factor in the rate at which hardware was/has/is getting faster and more powerful and you should see where the problem is.

Simpler example: When I bought my current desktop in April it cost me approximately 3000 USD for the tower and monitor. More than I needed to spend, but at the time it wasn't an issue and that is besides the point.

To build the same exact setup now costs only 1245 USD!

This rig is designed for one thing: gaming. When it was built the only game it couldn't run on the absolute highest settings was Crysis, but it came damn close. Not a single game since Crysis came out comes close to taxing the system and it doesn't look like there is going to be anything for a while that will.

If gamers who are obsessed with having the highest settings possible run flawlessly can do so on "last generation" equipment, why upgrade? Why go top of the line?

If the software doesn't catch up with the hardware again we're going to have a gap of stagnation...

Re:Why make it more complicated than it really is?

[RobertinXinyang]

"Also China and India are much bigger than USA and Europe, and those markets are still growing, at a slightly slower rate than before. That ought to more than counteract any decline in western economies."

Yes, but in China a copy of windows can be purchased for 5-10 RMB (about $.80-$1.20). Some of the people I work for went on a quest for a legitimate copy of Windows and Office. Here on a campus of over 50,000 people there was not a single legitimate copy, not one.

The quest continued. What we finally discovered was that we could get a legitimate copy in Beijing. It would have been a three day round trip. They finally gave up on their quest and used locally purchased copies; me, due to problems with these copies, I switched to OpenOffice and just accept the faults of this (rather bugggey) copy of Vista grafted onto the XP loader.

This can not be good for microsft

Re:Why make it more complicated than it really is?

[Anonymous Coward]

Before you make statements like this, why don't you take the time to do some research? The United States has a population of 300 million, and the overwhelming majority can afford a computer. India has a per capita income of about $1000 (nominal terms, which is what counts when purchasing a globally traded item like a computer). Even with a billion people, this is not going to provide a huge market of people able or willing to pay $40 for a copy of Windows.

Re:Why make it more complicated than it really is?

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah, but ubuntu sucks.

Re:Why make it more complicated than it really is?

[Anonymous Coward]

Cool thanks for that. I'm now running what you suggest and now have more performance than 4 cray supercomputers and 120 8 core top of the line servers.

I am so glad you gave me some good info!

You're so creative.... and sucky.

Re:Why make it more complicated than it really is?

[billcopc]

The economy ? How about the fact that Vista is a complete flop ?

If anything's taking a bite out of Windows profits, it's the release of their worst-ever operating system.

Re:Why make it more complicated than it really is?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hyperthreaded =/= Dual core. You have a single core 1.6Ghz Atom CPU that can be recognized as a dual core CPU. That's hyperthreading in action right there. Just wait until you run an old application that absolutely cannot be multithreaded. At most, it'll peg the CPU at about 53%. Even if you wanted it to, it will not go higher. No one single application will peg the CPU at 100%. I find Hyperthreading in this aspect to be a serious drawback because it limits the raw power you can get out of the CPU itself.

The screen is 1024x600. Not 1024x400. Roughly 16:9.34 aspect ratio.

For real use performance, I find the Aspire One to be roughly equivalent of a 600Mhz Pentium. It's not blazing fast. At best, on low settings, I get about 20fps on some games. Regularly between 7-15 fps. And this was on a DX7 era game that is entirely CPU bound.

GPU based games don't run too much better, really. (No, I didn't buy the netbook for gaming, though it's nice to be able to sit back and frag a few AIs during a long train ride.)

The Aspire One with 512MB of ram is dog slow. I upgraded mine and added 1GB to it. It became much more usable, but Firefox still takes nearly a minute to finish loading. Disabling virtual memory/swap finally took that bit of I/O lag out of the equation and I find it less tedious to use.

Now, if you were coming from a P2/300 Mhz Dell laptop, I could understand your enthusiasm, but I hardly doubt that you are able to compare it to a Dell laptop from 2 years ago. My current laptop is about 2 1/2 years old and it kicks the crap out of the Aspire One. (True Dual Core, 2Ghz Intel C2D, 2GB Ram, dedicated video Geforce 7700 Mobile with 512MB of video ram)

I built a file server/network box. 512MB of ram, P2/500Mhz CPU. The Aspire One runs about the same.

Re:Why make it more complicated than it really is?

[smoker2]

Hah.
You get modded interesting. When I suggested that companies such as microsoft would not be allowed(by the govt.) to die because of their influence on the market I was called a troll. What a difference a day makes ! All I got was accusations of re-distributing wealth and I should just let them die, no matter the consequences for the helpless people who HAVE THEIR PENSION INVESTED IN THEM !

Re:Why make it more complicated than it really is?

[Firethorn]

Microsoft is regarded as a utility stock these days - in a recession, people still need computers as they aren't the luxury item they once were.

I'd argue that anybody doing this is making a mistake. Utility stocks tend to be stable because it takes some massive changes for somebody to use less water, fewer kwh, lower amounts of gas during the winter, etc...

In comparison, not paying the microsoft tax is rather easy. Simply stop buying a computer every 2 years, extend it to 3. If you're on a 3-4 year schedule, extend it a year or two.

Don't buy the vista upgrade. Consider Linux for your business.

Microsoft is about as much a utility as a car manufacturer - sure, it's tough in most areas to give up your vehicle, but nobody's preventing you from going to a different company.

Re:Why make it more complicated than it really is?

[funkboy]

The Atom in the Aspire One is hyperthreaded, not dual-core. Intel is specifically prohibiting netbook vendors from using the dual-core atom so that they "won't eat into sales of higher-end machines".

Or we could just admit that we just don't need a teraflop to run office apps & surf the web...

Re:Why make it more complicated than it really is?

[Free the Cowards]

It's much better than the alternative. China is addicted to MS Windows just like the rest of the world. The fact that they aren't paying for it is irrelevant, because it still helps reinforce the Windows monopoly in the rest of the world, and that enormous audience still represents potential future revenue, once MS decides they really want it.

Now imagine if Windows weren't widely pirated in China. Would Chinese people pay a good fraction of a month's salary for a copy? Hell no! The entire place would have ended up as a gigantic Microsoft-free zone which would have shown the rest of the world that maybe shoveling billions into Microsoft isn't as necessary as they thought.

If Microsoft has any brains about them, they're deliberately turning a blind eye to rampant piracy in third-world nations. They are far better off having their products be ubiquitously pirated by poorer nations than extracting a small revenue stream from them while forcing most of the population to seek cheaper alternatives.

Re:Why make it more complicated than it really is?

[Sj0]

Totally off topic, but I'm posting from an Aspire One right now too, and I paid the same you did.

Awesome machine. If Microsoft suffers greatly reduced profits when someone sells one, Microsoft is in serious trouble.

Re:Why make it more complicated than it really is?

[ignavus]

In a recession FEWER people still need computers - especially the corporate types that MS makes their money from. Bankruptcy and cost-cutting (don't upgrade to Vista!) increase during recession - as do staff cuts (= fewer computers needed).

Re:Why make it more complicated than it really is?

[symbolset]

Somebody doesn't like you in moderator land but you're perfectly right -- though I wouldn't dig all the way back to the PIII and the PII is way too far. I'm a packrat and even I have given up on stuff that old. That an OS is useful on hardware that old is no longer even indicative of what it can do on the lowest power modern gear. It's of historical interest, and embedded platform interest, only. Maybe as unit tests for prelaunch satellites, though I understand they prefer BSD.

The Atom PC at 35 watts is ideal for emerging markets, cheapo PHBs and treehuggers. It runs all the decent business software just fine, works with the latest technologies like SATA and PCIe, and burns less coal-powered watts than the dimmest desk lamp bulb. In comparison a P4 3.6GHz blows enough amps to power a pair of hot halogen floods.

This is important in the US if you want to evince energy independence. It's even more important in emerging markets where if you want to build out a call center you have to provide the watts yourself.

But the Atom not only doesn't run Windows Vista well - it doesn't run it in any acceptable way and Windows 7 will be "less bad" but still not useful.

Re:Why make it more complicated than it really is?

[JAlexoi]

I wonder if these changes will cause MS to step up the lock-in+automatic obsolescence aspects of their software?

That would probably leave them open to class action lawsuits....

Re:Why make it more complicated than it really is?

[Whiteox]

Not a single game since Crysis came out comes close to taxing the system

Ever try FlightSim 10?
The guys who run it, also run a pile of addons like real world weather, ATC, virtual 3d cockpits and the rest.
Even FS9 on directx 9 sucks on a 3.2P4 with 2gb ram with the best 3D card - maybe 20fps.
FS10 or FSX as it is known, can barely do 10fps.

3D card/systems comparisons generally avoid the FS game as it is very demanding on all systems.

Re:Why make it more complicated than it really is?

[Miamicanes]

> I dare say that a 1Ghz PC with XP (or even better GNU/Linux) would suffice as a workstation for 80% of office workers.

Ummm... 1GHz pushing it a little far. Let's say 1.6GHz with 2 gigs of RAM ;-)

Anything less than that, and you're going to end up endlessly consuming your support staff's time, because slow computers almost inevitably have problems that fast ones don't. Yeah, it's probably due to user error (filling the input queue with superfluous mouseclicks when Windows appears to be unresponsive because it's madly thrashing something to and from the pagefile, hitting ctrl-alt-delete to kill an app at the worst possible moment, or similar feats)... but it happens. Unless your employees' time has zero value (including the time of your support staff), making them use slow computers is false economy of the worst kind.

Also, there's nothing magic about Linux's resource requirements. A 1GHz PC running KDE or Gnome is going to be every bit as slow and overloaded as a 1GHz PC running Windows XP... if not worse. Launch Open Office's word processor, Thunderbird, and one or two instances of Firefox, and it's going to be brought to its knees every bit as hard as the XP box running the exact same apps.

If nothing else, the fact that Linux is nominally free means there's no excuse for sabotaging your business with underpowered hardware, because you can use the $100-200 savings from Linux to give it double the ram, a 7200rpm hard drive, and a dual-core CPU...

Re:Why make it more complicated than it really is?

[Alioth]

It's not just that the economy is slowing, it's that computers, especially desktop computers, have been good enough for several years now. It is no longer the case you have to replace a computer every 2 years to keep up with the latest office software, sticking in some more RAM usually is sufficient.

I used to get a new PC every 18 months or so, since I often develop code and having fast compile times is important to me. But my current main PC? It will be 6 years old in January, and I have no intention of replacing it. The only thing I've done in the last 6 years to it is a couple of memory and disc upgrades to keep up with the inexorable size increase in software, and those have been cheap upgrades. Personally, I don't run XP, but for the majority of users XP is good enough - if they aren't getting a new PC why would they spend a large sum of money on Vista?

Re:Why make it more complicated than it really is?

[YourExperiment]

a 1024X400 screen

The screen is 1024 X 600. Sure, the vertical resolution is still the most annoying thing about these machines, but it's not that annoying!

Re:Why make it more complicated than it really is?

[drsmithy]

Mac OS X 10.4 works wonderfully on our 400MHz G3, 400MHz G4 and 800MHz G4.

If you're happy with OS X on Macs like those, you'll be more than happy with Vista on equivalently-aged (and especially -priced) PC hardware.

Re:Why make it more complicated than it really is?

[David Gerard]

Not with only 1GB memory I won't. (These boxes have 768MB, 1GB and 1GB respectively. OS X's arse is fat, but not as fat as Vista's.)

Re:Why make it more complicated than it really is?

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't buy the vista upgrade. Consider Linux for your business.

Microsoft is about as much a utility as a car manufacturer - sure, it's tough in most areas to give up your vehicle, but nobody's preventing you from going to a different company.

Much as I agree with MS monopoly vs Linux cheap and functional, I do find these comments unhelpful. Yes, I can find the same or similar programs for my business in the open source world; yes, I can save $壉 by making the switch; yes, it makes the IT world a better place... but what about the cost of retraining staff, recoding applications over to Linux, redeploying x number of machines, and renegotiating all the contracts for all in-house IT work and outsourced work which may or may not be impacted by the change (will still need to IA every bit of work!)?

Plus, it is far harder to sell this to the board when they ask how viable and robust the open source world is during a recession, when they are relying on the largesse of donations which I suppose may well be cut when no one has much money left! We know that for all its sins, MS will be able to soak up this downturn and as a company we will not have to worry that our supplier and support base will suddenly go bust! Sorry, but real world IT just will not want to take the chance of this happening...

Re:Why make it more complicated than it really is?

[rufus t firefly]

Anyways, I imaged the drive and blew out the XP install to install ubuntu... other than losing the wifi switch function it's 100% and I found an article in ubuntu forums that talks about how to make that switch function again...

Also try powertop... I was able to get about 4 to 4.5 hours of battery life out of the T60 I was using for work, and pretty close to that with the T61.

Re:Why make it more complicated than it really is?

[FithisUX]

The problem is that I want a 10" netbook with Linux here in Greece, but this f8ck5 here have signed secret contracts. MS puppet shops. This is a sign of a company in problem.

Re:Why make it more complicated than it really is?

[jvin248]

I run a 1999 era HP laptop Pentium-3 at 500Mhz with 256MB ram with Xubuntu 8.04 just fine for Open Office presentations with clients, and run firefox 3 and thunderbird on it. I even have a 1997 300mhz P2 that can run it (video out port has too few colors for presentations though).

I refurbish desktop and laptop pc's and generally find the best range is to put Ubuntu on 1Ghz+, Kubuntu on 700Mhz+ or Xubuntu on 450Mhz+ machines. More ram obviously helps. A Netbook with 1Ghz processor and 1-2GB ram can be a great system (especially running Xubuntu with Xfce window manager).

This is why when I saw that Linux could be a "Modern operating system" on the Netbooks that there would be no stopping people buying this niche. There are a lot of people looking for inexpensive computers (check out ebay and craigslist some time).

The risk with the Netbooks is they start listening to potential users... "I'd want a bigger screen", "faster processor" out of vanity, "bigger keys", "how about Windows", ... and the slim tiny netbook suddenly transforms into an expensive sub-notebook in features and price.

Keep pushing the price down and do it with an unmodified Xubuntu or Kubuntu OS and more of the market will be opened up.

Re:Why make it more complicated than it really is?

[jvin248]

The reason for the longevity of the installed PC base, and the reason Dell and Microsoft have been struggling, is the computing task bottleneck is Internet Broadband speed not the hardware or software you're running. Anything made in the last 5 years runs well (you can go 10 years if you use Linux rather than Windows). Most users are running a browser and typing a letter or report on an office productivity suite (MSOffice or OpenOffice).

Some of that is changing though with content providers (networks like abc, nbc, etc and movie downloads such as Netflix). Moving this much data will force Internet upgrades which will then begin to show the age of PCs and what cannot keep up. And then people will be upgrading again.

MSFT goes SaaS?

[Rinisari]

I was talking to a friend at work about this. We basically felt the same way--Microsoft will eventually either have to cut significant costs so that it can afford to sell Windows for $10-25 per copy (even if it's a reduced version for netbooks) or move to a Software as a Service (SaaS) model. Microsoft could charge $10 to OEMs (maybe $50 retail) upfront, then require a subscription to get updates other than security updates. It could move to a "new big feature" once or twice a year that only subscribers can get.

It's a little farfetched, I know, but it seems the way to go these days. I'd rather pay $50 upfront and then $10 per month for four years than pay $400 upfront at retail. On a netbook, I think it wouldn't be unreasonable for Microsoft to offer something like Box.net on-line storage/backup as part of the subscription, too, especially for netbooks, which, like phones, are more prone to being lost/stolen than larger laptops and desktops.

Re:MSFT goes SaaS?

[jonbryce]

People are not going to pay for updates. It is difficult enough to persuade people to load updates when they are free.

Re:MSFT goes SaaS?

[TBoon]

Microsoft could charge $10 to OEMs (maybe $50 retail) upfront, then require a subscription to get updates other than security updates. It could move to a "new big feature" once or twice a year that only subscribers can get.

I'd rather pay $10 to *not* have them come up with a "new big feature" that often. Netbooks don't need "big features", they need a simple and stable platform to run user applications on.

Re:MSFT goes SaaS?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I'm not sure that SaaS can save them from this problem. People are fairly willing, these days, to pay monthly subscription fees for services, so there isn't an inherent psychological problem; but windows netbook $250 + $10/month vs. linux netbook $250 + $0/month is going to be a hard sell. Perhaps worse, though, is the interest cell companies are showing in selling subsidized netbooks with data plans. If the netbook+monthly fee thing becomes a telco standard, the MS will face the unpleasant prospect of having to play knife-fight-in-a-telephone-booth with the notoriously mean bloodsuckers at the telcos over exactly how much of the customer's monthly fee with go to them and how much to the cell guys.

Ultimately, though, it just comes down to the fact that cheaper hardware demands cheaper software. 50 or 100 dollars for windows is noticable; but not hugely important in a $2000 computer. 50 dollars for windows on a netbook probably means the difference between impulse purchase and not. I don't think that this will affect MS's market share directly, they can afford to give away XP for netbooks until the end of time, if they want to. Their margins, though, will suffer, and that could be quite serious for some of their divisions. Being able to start a project and let it absolutely hemorrhage money for years if need be gives MS impressive strategic freedom. If their margins on Windows and Office suffer, they won't be able to do that anymore.

Re:MSFT goes SaaS?

[rolfwind]

It's a little farfetched, I know, but it seems the way to go these days. I'd rather pay $50 upfront and then $10 per month for four years than pay $400 upfront at retail.

$400 for Windows is too much, the OEMs pay much less.

Also the last thing I need is another monthy bill. I have a Trac Phone to avoid that (could easily afford the iPhone but not justify the monthly rate). My used car is bought outright. Other necessary bills minimized, especially in this economy. Etcetera.

Once windows becomes subsciption: it will either be structured in such a way (updates as you describe) that most people don't bother thus lose money anyway, or many people start migrating away which is exactly what they don't want. It would be the beginning of Linux as a mainstream desktop OS.

Re:MSFT goes SaaS?

[maxume]

I don't think Microsoft will have to cut significant costs to sell Windows for $25 a copy. Especially XP, which they have pretty much already paid for. As it stands, their OS sales are essentially printing money for them. Go to the following page and find the "Client" section to see what I am talking about:

http://www.microsoft.com/msft/reports/ar08/10k_fr_dis.html

Re:MSFT goes SaaS?

[Joce640k]

Microsoft can afford to sell Windows for $10-$25 a copy, or even less if they need to. At the moment they're making 85% profit on it (according to GIS for "windows profit margin").

What this means is that the gravy days are over for Microsoft.

Re:MSFT goes SaaS?

[RiotingPacifist]

They already do better than this OEMs pay something like $50 or less for a license, they make their money on corporate sales.

Re:MSFT goes SaaS?

[i.of.the.storm]

I like your fiscal planning. I wish there was a decent prepaid carrier with good network. Verizon's "prepaid" essentially costs the same as their regular service and you don't even get minutes, just pay $1 every day you use it for in calling and I think more on top of that for calling other people. T-Mobile might be an option, I'd love to get a G1 but I'm not sure whether they let you get a prepaid account with that.

Re:MSFT goes SaaS?

[jmorris42]

> Microsoft could charge $10 to OEMs (maybe $50 retail) upfront, then require a subscription to get updates other than security updates.

Yea, it could. But they currently get $32 for XP on a netbook and as much as $80 for a basic Vista. Big OEMs like Dell pay less (exact amount secret) and some machines that ship with more expensive versions of Vista pay more. The point being that even if your idea could work it would be a fatal hit to their bottom line. If they can't tap people for at least $5 a month a subscription model is going to be seen by Wall Street (rightly) as a lot less profitable than the current model.

The problem is that the only way people might pony up that kind of coin is they actually get something major, not just fixes to product defects. Even giving access to every Microsoft non-game product wouldn't induce many people to put up with a monthly subscription.

> I'd rather pay $50 upfront and then $10 per month for four years than pay $400 upfront at retail.

If they could still clip people for $50 up front they would have a future. Good luck convincing an OEM to put a $50 component into a product destined to retail for $200 or less. That is the world that is coming and it terrifies Microsoft. As the hardware cost for a basic network node approaches zero the software cost must do likewise, the days of selling the basic operating system, browser and office suite are coming to a close. And as computers become consumer electronics the reality of that transition is just being realized by the soon to be former PC makers. So both the current hardware makers and Microsoft are desperately trying to find some way to survive and would just love to transition to a subscription model in some sort of joint venture with the telcos/ISPs. Laptops/netbooks might end up tethered to a cell modem and a monthy bill but neither Dell nor Microsoft are needed by the telcos. They would rather buy the machines direct from China themselves and pocket the profits.

> On a netbook, I think it wouldn't be unreasonable for Microsoft to offer something like Box.net on-line storage/backup
> as part of the subscription..

Pay for a net based service? Surely you jest. ASUS is already giving it away for free now.

Re:MSFT goes SaaS?

[Anonymous Coward]

> It would be the beginning of Linux as a mainstream desktop OS

Only when Linux has the killer apps. The O/S is irrelevant, it's all about the apps.

Re:MSFT goes SaaS?

[mlts]

One note. Subscriptions tend to become contracts from what I see. Paying $20 for the OS, and signing an agreement to pay $15 a month for a year is not what I want to do with a computer.

Re:MSFT goes SaaS?

[David Gerard]

Particularly when they discover Wine. We use Wine as production machinery at work, so we know damn well it's up to enterprise use. Its magical niche is replacing that one bit of old crapware you can't get rid of. And I'm more surprised these days when Windows software doesn't work well under Wine than when it does.

Re:MSFT goes SaaS?

[David Gerard]

As Mark Shuttleworth said, "I've heard creditable reports of Microsoft offering XP at no cost to OEMs."

Re:MSFT goes SaaS?

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft has about an 85% net profit margin on windows and office.

They can afford to cut their prices about 70%, and still be reasonably profitable.

They wouldn't be able to subsidize projects into other areas (Xbox, etc.) or generate enough cash to sustain their stock price, but they'd still do fine.

Re:MSFT goes SaaS?

[rolfwind]

Yeah, I'm down to one software that doesn't have a Windows equivalent or can't run on wine like ebay Blackthorne. Unfortunately, it's not going to work anytime soon.

Re:MSFT goes SaaS?

[David Gerard]

Indeed. Arse!

Oh well, this is the sort of thing VirtualBox was made for ;-D

Re:MSFT goes SaaS?

[fermion]

Right, but computers are getting cheap enough that the cell phone subscription model might work. Buy a computer, sign up for $50 a month internet access over the cable or phone lines, applications, email, etc. The problem with this used to be that the computers were not good computers and the amount of control the service vendor wanted was excessive.

Now it would not be unreasonable for a person to choose a computer they wanted, get a discount, up to 100%, pay an activation fee, and walk out with a complete solution. Of course, MS does not tend to provide complete solution, relying on third parties to do that bit, so MS is going to have to write some mighty good software and give some mighty good incentives if they wish to survive in this way.

Ultimately it would provide the kind of regular income that MS is currently missing in the consumer sector. Enterprise has to pay MS money every year, but most others only buy stuff 2-3 years. It is unfortunate, but expected, that they wasted all their time writing Vista instead of preparing for this new market.

Re:MSFT goes SaaS?

[rolfwind]

Okay, cool thanks.

I was told exactly because of .net 2.0 that it won't install. Didn't think of installing net by itself.

Re:MSFT goes SaaS?

[petermgreen]

Yea, it could. But they currently get $32 for XP on a netbook and as much as $80 for a basic Vista.
Where are those figures from, I thought MS direct OEM (not system builder) pricing was negotiated on a case by case basis.

Re:MSFT goes SaaS?

[Anonymous Coward]

People are not going to pay for updates. It is difficult enough to persuade people to load updates when they are free.

Give them tech support with that fee and you might be singing a different tune.

Even though we both know 99% of the tech "support" calls for MS OS will start something like "Er, um yeah, I was on this website and something popped up and said my PC was infected, and it said to click here to clean it, so I did and..."

Re:MSFT goes SaaS?

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft will eventually either have to cut significant costs so that it can afford to sell Windows for $10-25 per copy

This meme has been bandied about for quite some time now, and I don't disagree with the fact that Microsoft can't demand the same amount from OEM's selling $100 computers as they could when OEM's were selling $4000 computers. However, that in itself doesn't imply that Microsoft's revenue will automatically go down, because what they lose per machine they might make up in volume. When computers cost $100, people might start upgrading every year. They might buy several at a time, so that they don't have to fight with their kids about who gets to use it. Etc.

I don't think it's the low cost computer per se that will cause Microsoft problems, it's the proliferation of platforms. Microsoft's OS is not well equipped to run on the plethora of computing devices being manufactured. Over time, even MS loyalists will find themselves using non-MS computing devices - their phone, their GPS, their TV, their games, whatever. They will learn that there is a world beyond Microsoft, that making the transition really isn't so difficult, and Microsoft's brand will suffer. Also, because there will be so many non-MS devices out there, interoperability will become increasingly important. Microsoft is a one trick pony. Their entire business model is predicated on hooking people on their proprietary file formats and protocols. That works as long as you can maintain a near monopoly, but a diverse computing ecology won't tolerate that. Then the old argument "I have to buy Microsoft because everyone else is using it" will become so much horse pucky.

MS will survive, but they will have to significantly transform themselves into something that bears little resemblance to the Microsoft of yore. Bill left on his own. Steve will not go willingly, because now that he's steering the boat, he has something to prove. He will only succeed in proving that he really is a boob, and will eventually be booted. The board will attempt to pin Microsoft's upcoming financial problems on personalities, and so there will be a parade of poor bastards at the helm who will take turns trying to paddle back upstream to where Microsoft came from. They will all fail, shares will lose value, the board will turn over, and eventually Microsoft will turn the page and become something new. If you're the right kind of person, I suppose the wilderness years might be kind of interesting to experience; but if you are mostly dead weight (middle managers on up, I'm talking to you), you are in for a rough ride.

Re:MSFT goes SaaS?

[Mean Variance]

I like your fiscal planning. I wish there was a decent prepaid carrier with good network. Verizon's "prepaid" essentially costs the same as their regular service and you don't even get minutes

Look at PagePlus. They use Verizon's network. I have used T-Mobile prepaid for about 4 years and am happy with it.

Re:MSFT goes SaaS?

[i.of.the.storm]

Interesting, although their phones all suck. I suppose it would work if I got a smartphone from ebay or craigslist. To be honest I'm not paying my cellphone bill since it's a family plan so I really don't care too much. I think what I really want is the G1 on Verizon.

Re:MSFT goes SaaS?

[JAlexoi]

fact that cheaper hardware demands cheaper software

Not true. Cheaper hardware, requires cheaper OS. Witch by itself DOES NOT BRING VALUE. I mean, you don't just install clean Windows XP and become happy and productive(Excluding the online services, since you can use them with LiveCD Linux).

Re:MSFT goes SaaS?

[rtechie]

Tell it to Apple.

Re:MSFT goes SaaS?

[jvin248]

MSFT will fail with SaaS. Real users hate it.

The Ubuntu's are showing people there is another viable option. No cost, unless they are a business that desires some hand-holding with consulting and coaching.

Open Office, Firefox, Thunderbird, Gimp/Inkscape, etc are all getting picked up by Windows and Linux users alike. (handy features lure some in like Open Office will export to pdf, last I heard MSOffice didn't do that). Using that software base then makes a transition to Linux easy - they will be using familiar programs - like getting a Netbook running Linux.

In the future Microsoft will be smaller. They will need to adapt to the Linux model to compete. They will need to offer a mix of open source, industry compliant file format standards, and "play nice" with computer manufacturers and consumers.

Or else they will fail.

Correction

[Anonymous Coward]

Equipping Linux on a computer, USING CHILD LABOR IN CHINA, costs $5 each.

Re:Correction

[zippthorne]

Considering how easy it is to image a disk for identical machines, those are some well-paid children. Better paid than you, I would imagine.

Unless you're saying that that's what development costs, in which case, I'd say those are some well-educated children...

Re:Correction

[LiquidCoooled]

The children are not paid to install the software on the machines.
They are paid to drag the crates of machines up out of the mine.

Re:Correction

[TeacherOfHeroes]

Equipping Linux on a computer, USING CHILD LABOR IN CHINA, costs $5 each.

Linux. So easy, even children can install it!

Re:Correction

[thrillseeker]

Equipping Linux on a computer, using MANDATORY VOLUNTEERISM IN AMERICA, costs $50 each.

There, fixed that for you.

Next up - American "volunteers" outsourcing "volunteering" to Chinese children ...

Re:Correction

[Anonymous Coward]

Equipping Linux on a computer, USING CHILD LABOR IN CHINA, costs $5 each.

There's nothing wrong with child labor. Children worked their ass off to build the united states and bring it to where it is. It is our holier than thou attitude that pisses the world off. Let children work for a better world, for their children.

Re:Correction

[masshuu]

Yet you almost need 4 years of collage to get Windows running

Re:Correction

[cp.tar]

They mine those machines?
Those are some damn good mines the Chinese have...

Re:Correction

[Anonymous Coward]

There's nothing wrong with child labor.

Sure there is. What's wrong with child labor is that children can't defend themselves, can't protect themselves from predatory employers. Hell, adults have a hard time doing that: it's why the U.S. has labor laws (and unions, of course, which came first.) Sure, the U.S. used child labor for a long time, but stopped it when those kids were found to be mistreated and suffering terribly.

And I'd appreciate if you, as an American, would stop lumping all of us into whatever stereotypical preconception you've invented for yourself. I don't like it when people from other parts of the world do it, I don't do it to them, and I sure as hell don't like when one of us does it.

We're not all the same, not all arrogant, not all self-serving, not all in the throes of holier-than-thouness ... it's just that the obnoxious members of our society get more airtime.

Re:Correction

[naapo]

They mine those machines

Haven't you heard about data mining before?

Re:Correction

[cp.tar]

They mine those machines

Haven't you heard about data mining before?

Sure I have. But laptop mining? That's a first.

Re:Correction

[TheLink]

Nothing new - it's like any other traditional mining method.

Step #1: "That laptop is mine".
Step #2: ???
Step #3: Profit!

Seriously though - what is done to discarded laptops and other electronics is similar to mining.

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/04/10/ewaste/

Blame Game

[nurb432]

Not our fault, bla bla bla its their fault bla bla bla.

nice to see corporations have the same problem with personal responsibility the rest of the world has.

Not farfetched

[nurb432]

They are salivating while trying to make it work. Their MOLP"s are almost that and part of their core revenue stream.

Mmm...

[circlingthesun]

Wasn't there talk a while ago that M$ was giving away XP for free to netbook OEM's?

Re:Mmm...

[Ilgaz]

I stared to a Asus Eee thing a while ago running Windows XP. Just the idea of running XP on that machine along with Antivirus, Firewall and only the software updates horrified me.

If the companies put XP as option to them, it is not like they are getting it free (or dirt cheap), it is because they are very afraid of Microsoft.

If you are World's one of the most respected mainboard manufacturers (Asus) and you started to gain ground with your Laptops, you don't want to make Microsoft mad. MS can provide a single buggy driver update and create chaos in your customerbase. All they need to say "oops" after it. Customers will blame YOU, not them.

Re:Mmm...

[Kent Recal]

MS can provide a single buggy driver update and create chaos in your customerbase. All they need to say "oops" after it. Customers will blame YOU, not them.

Why would someone blame ASUS when a driver update pushed out by microsoft breaks a previously working system?

Re:Mmm...

[Frac O Mac]

Maybe not necessarily blame them, but people sure would be wary of buying one.

Re:Mmm...

[mk2mark]

Well that might be the case if microsoft were the only people that could write drivers?

What's stopping asus and co. developing their own drivers like they've always done? Even I, as a consumer can streamline/incorporate whatever drivers I like to a windows cd.

Re:Mmm...

[jvin248]

Maybe all those hardware manufacturers already gave Microsoft buggy drivers.... Oops, sorry you're having trouble with your user base. Now everyone wants Mac or Linux... Oops. I think customers are blaming MS not any hardware manufacturers for Vista problems.

Re:Mmm...

[Shotgun]

What's stopping asus and co. developing their own drivers like they've always done?

Microsoft. Ask IBM. They weren't able to get official Win95 beta's until just before it's release. The bargaining chip was that the PC division had to stop marketing/shipping OS/2. Well, that's at least what IBM execs claimed in a court of law, for whatever that's worth.

It is a well known fact that M$ is very powerful force on the market. If you are in the market and depend on hardware that runs Windows for revenue, you challenge them at your peril.

Re:Mmm...

[Anonymous Coward]

The truth behind why ASUS decided to put windows on the EEE has little nothing to do with M$.

I have a reliable source who is a decision maker at Best Buy. He said that Best Buy went to ASUS and told them that they wanted to make them a "premiere" brand and that they wanted to sell the EEE but they would only sell the EEE if it had windows on it.

Best Buy did this only because they thought the EEE would be more profitable for them if it had XP on it.

Companies like best buy get to set the direction in the industry with companies like ASUS because they know that a deal with Best Buy can shoot their profits through the roof.

they left one part out

[ILuvRamen]

I think they forgot that as far as I've heard, the netbooks aren't getting very good reviews from people who I guess you could say are using them wrong. If they sell their old P4 laptop and get a netbook as their only computer, they say it sucks. If they have a PC and want to be more mobile and get a netbook, they love them. So basically nobody can own one without owning another machine. So there's really still almost the same sales in windows operating systems because a large percentage who buy netbooks for the price wouldn't have bought a full $800 laptop anyway so microsoft isn't losing much. With netbooks and their amazing sub 14 inch screens and slow processors and inability to run many types of games and software, I don't expect them to take over for PCs ever so it's not as doom and gloom as this article makes it sound.

Re:they left one part out

[multisync]

So basically nobody can own one without owning another machine.

It seems to me they would make a great non-geek spouse machine, especially if you can't justify the cost of a Mac. I'm looking at picking one up myself, just for something I can carry around for reading slashdot in coffee shops and running VNC, Penguinet etc. to access the machines on my home network remotely.

People know what computers are now

[uassholes]

They are no longer novelties, and people know how to use them.

In this day and age, the desktop metaphor is no longer useful for helping neophytes.

Anyone clinging to their desktop metaphors are like children clinging to their "woobie".

Microsoft's days are past. People are sophisticated enough now to move to a new level.

If you still think of a directory as a "folder", ask yourself why.

Re:People know what computers are now

[dvh.tosomja]

>> If you still think of a directory as a "folder", ask yourself why.

I think nothing has changed there, file and directory are filesystem objects, document and folder are desktop objects, do not mix them please

Re:People know what computers are now

[steeleye_brad]

and people know how to use them.

After working for a university help desk, I can tell you with a great deal of certainty that this is quite false.

And I still think of a directory as a "folder" because pretty much all of my software refers to it as that. All the icons are of little folders, my file manager has a "make new folder" command, lots of programs I use have a command along the lines of "open folder". You know, maybe this is just proving that I'm some sort of "child clinging to my woobie," but I'm honestly not sure what the hell any of your points are.

Re:People know what computers are now

[zippthorne]

Indeed. Although computing is hurt a little by the folders metaphor:

Unlike a file cabinet, there is no reason why any document needs to be in only one folder at a time.

Now this is somewhat solved by linking: what a file cabinet solves with duplication of resources, most modern file systems solve with pointers, although this functionality is typically *not* exposed at a level that is convenient or intuitive for the median user.

But, there's no reason why that needs to be the limit of things, and indeed there are database structured file systems out there, though they don't seem to have caught on as well as their slightly flatter counterparts, and I think this is partially because of the way the files/folders metaphor restricts thinking.

Re:People know what computers are now

[Lumpy]

That is funny.

I deal with only degree holding education professionals for tech support. and Most do not know how to use a computer. they completely freak out when they lose a "folder" and they bork their Office or Outlook all the time by deleting a toolbar or doing something else that is trivial to fix.

Most people, including highly educated people DO NOT know how to use a computer. They can barely operate them.

Re:People know what computers are now

[cgenman]

Why do you think of a folder as a directory?

Just because it isn't your metaphor of choice doesn't mean it isn't an equally valid metaphor.

Re:People know what computers are now

[pdusen]

If you still think of a directory as a "folder", ask yourself why.

Because people have been calling them folders for as long as I have been involved with computing?

I think you seriously overrate the importance of how you refer to something...

Re:People know what computers are now

[rdnetto]

Because the terms 'directory' and 'folder' have become synonymous for the internet generation.

Re:People know what computers are now

[hack slash]

"Most people, including highly educated people DO NOT know how to use a computer. They can barely operate them."

That's so true, people who have trouble using computers almost always have this preconception that because it's innards are complicated (really, how many people know how to build a chip from scratch?) that it must be complicated to use - this preconception hinders their ability to explore the OS/machine and see exactly what they can get out of it just by trying things.

The downside to this phonomenon is that if you happen to be ok/fairly good on a computer then all your friends who know nothing about them think you're some sort of genius and can do anything with them. I couldn't begin to count the number of times I've had that head-on-desk feeling when someone asks "you're good on computers, can you ....".
You end up being unpaid tech help to all the 'luddites' out there :(

Reading this on my Eee 901.

[Anonymous Coward]

That is all. ;)

DamnSmallWindows

[TBoon]

I'd like to see MS reinvent the WinCE concept as something a bit more similar to DamnSmallLinux/PuppyLinux. A minimalistic base system, capable of (and optimized for) running at ultra low-end hardware, yet able to run virtually any "real" Windows application (and game) if the hardware is up to the task, and have storage space for the extra modules needed.

Re:DamnSmallWindows

[bazorg]

If you visit The Pirate Bay and look for TinyXP you'll see that it is possible to slim down normal XP to 400MB (after installation) and use that as a good base for customization. Considering the way this is achieved, I'm surprised that OEM's haven't adopted the technique to make their own Windows "editions".

Re:DamnSmallWindows

[Lumpy]

It's called embedded XP and it also is a utter failure. I've had to fight with Embedded XP on several systems. It's a resource hog and has all the flaws of XP for embedded use.

Wrong

[TheLink]

You're either trolling or you are one of those clueless people who have no idea how much lower the cost of living is in poorer countries and so keep believing your jobs are going overseas because of child labour.

Normal labour doesn't even cost that much in China.

Even with a brain dead CD installation method I'm sure you can install Linux on more than 10 computers in one day. Low cost labour in China doesn't cost USD50/day.

A decent ready-made meal probably only costs USD1.

Yes most chinese workers can't afford two SUVs/trucks, a big house with a TV in each room (and the heating/cooling bill), a big slab of meat for every meal. But perhaps with the current energy infrastructure, maybe the world can't afford it either.

If I can get paid USD5 per PC install of Linux, bring em on, I'd easily do 100 a day, and still have lots of time to nap, post on Slashdot, play games etc.

May not be a lot of money for you, but it's good money where I am.

Re:Wrong

[Citizen of Earth]

Yes most chinese workers can't afford two SUVs/trucks, a big house with a TV in each room (and the heating/cooling bill), a big slab of meat for every meal.

It's kind of ironic how it's been the Chinese who have been financing so many Americans to be able to live beyond their means as described above.

You should not.

[twitter]

You can't blame the recession when M$ underperforms the economy in general and other companies do better.

Over the year, PC shipments were up by 12% but M$'s software profits were only up 2%. Those profits were actually down over the preceding quarter. Then again, it's not like you can trust M$ numbers because they have been caught cooking the books before. Vista is a failure, so I'm not sure how they managed to do keep themselves from sinking, other than squeezing their existing customers harder than ever. That's bad for good will, you know.

Red Hat, IBM, Google and other companies are doing just fine and are growing.

So, the simple answer is best. M$ is having a hard time competing with free software, just like everyone knew they would.

Re:You should not.

[Anonymous Coward]

You very clearly have no idea how any of this works.

The simple answer is - the entire world is in decline, Microsoft is in decline. Occam's razor.

Vista is only a failure in your mind, and no droning lists of constructed 'problems' will change that.

Re:You should not.

[Toreo asesino]

Vista is a failure

Keep saying it enough and you might convince yourself. Meanwhile, if your metric for failure is sales, then I'd suggestion 180 million sales isn't a bad metric to go by.

To be objective, Vista did break a lot of things when it RTMed, hence the bad rap it took. Nearly 2 years on now, and things are much much smoother.

But no, you're right, Vista is a failure. Keep repeating it and it'll be true eventually I promise!

Re:You should not.

[David Gerard]

180 million sales! And at least some of those were actually activated and are actually in use!

Microsoft have the precise number of Vista machines in the wild - it's the number hitting the Windows Update servers. But they don't push that number, they push the "licenses shipped" number, which is meaningless in a world with legally allowed XP upgrades.

Re:You should not.

[jcr]

Your simple answer ignores the fact that microsoft is underperforming the rest of its industry. Occam's razor doesn't require tossing away facts.

-jcr

Re:You should not.

[ConceptJunkie]

And how many sales of Vista would there be if Microsoft didn't have a de facto monopoly and could force that steaming load of overripe cheese onto practically every new computer sold in the world?

Not 180 million but maybe 180 thousand.

Vista is a failure because very few people would choose it. The vast majority of sales were forced on people regardless of what they would choose, and I can guarantee most of those sales would not happen if customers didn't have a choice.

I'm glad the Netbooks are hurting Microsoft because Microsoft does nothing but damage the industry and stagnates the state of the art. They are a boat anchor on the whole technical industry and the sooner their monopoly is broken, the better we will all be.

Re:You should not.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sorry, I must have missed that 'fact'.

Care to provide the evidence? What I have says differently.

Re:You should not.

[Anonymous Coward]

And at least some of those were actually activated and are actually in use!

Not only that, but apparently they're even connected to the intertubes.

Uncomfortable stats, those. twitter says the "methodology is flawed", but can't actually point out why.

When Microsoft's revenue fell 24% a few quarters ago, willy (that's his real name) wrote up a storm of lame journals detailing why "M$" was dying; next quarter when they continued to shovel money, he was strangely silent. He's been smoking the BoycottNovell weed a bit to strongly, where they have parties when NOVL or MSFT are down 2% and find other things to do when they're up by 15%. That's been willy's war chant for the last few months.

So you don't need Microsoft to tell you how many Vista machines our out there, there are independent metrics for that.

Uncomfortable stats, those. "Flawed" for reasons unknown when presented to zealots like you and willy. Funny, how you show up everywhere he's posting, too.

Re:You should not.

[Anonymous Coward]

Whatever happened to Crazy Willy's "Free Culture is FUN!" meme he was trying to push some time back? It came across as forced and slightly hysterical. What an absolute fruitcake.

Re:You should not.

[jcr]

Try clicking on the five-year link. The three-day chart doesn't tell you much.

-jcr

Re:You should not.

[hairyfeet]

Uh,you DO know that MSFT counts a downgrade as Vista,right? Or that places like Tigerdirect are bragging on new machines "With XP Pro Downgrade Preinstalled!"? As a guy running a little PC shop in AR,and who has worked in repair shops off and on since the days of Win3.11 I can tell you I have NEVER in all my years seen so many folks coming in just to say "Please get this damned thing off my PC and put on XP!". And I mean never.

Even with the suck of WinME we didn't have to deal with as many folks wanting to downgrade to an older MSFT OS as I have had to with Vista. I even know a guy who chunked his laptop out his 3rd story window into the dumpster below and bought a Mac that afternoon because Vista had pissed him off one too many times. And I have gotten to the point that I tell folks $250 when they ask me to switch their sub-$600 laptop from Vista to XP just because I'm sick and tired of trying to find drivers for those damned cheap crappy Vista laptops. And thanks to MSFT keeping the price high on retail copies I really wouldn't be surprised if most of those laptops I refuse to touch probably end up with hot XP put on them by someone else.

Personally I don't care what they do with them because I'm staying busy with all the new PCs folks want built so they can have a new XP machine. You know it is bad when folks go out of their way to have someone like me build them a PC for higher cost than they would pay Dell simply because they don't want the latest from MSFT. So whether the perception from the public is based on hearsay or not,I can tell you that I couldn't give away a copy of Vista if I tried. Folks just don't want it around here. And it never fails that when folks come into the shop complaining about how much they hate their new Dell,Compaq,HP,etc and need it fixed I say "You got Vista'd,didn't you!" and they say "Yeah,I got Vista'd real hard and I HATE IT! Please make this damn thing go away!". So at least from my perspective MSFT's stupidity is my gain.

Re:You should not.

[cgenman]

I constantly have clients asking if they should avoid Vista, how to avoid Vista, and if their prior Vista purchase was a mistake. This never happened with XP.

From a public perception standpoing, Vista generally stands in the way of buying a new computer, rather than an enticement. I'd consider that a failure.

Re:You should not.

[ChunderDownunder]

Indeed. The past 2 computers I've bought have had XP installed, with Vista upgrade CDs. Two more 'sales' of Vista, but I haven't bothered to take them out of the packaging.

Re:You should not.

[David Gerard]

You know, you'd have 100% more credibility if you weren't anon.

Re:You should not.

[Toreo asesino]

180 million sales! And at least some of those were actually activated and are actually in use!

There's plenty more I suspect that were not purchased but are in use, that of course won't be included in that ball-park-figure. Remember, we're talking to installations that someone handed hard cash over for only, which of course isn't necessary for FOSS operating systems.

Re:You should not.

[rdnetto]

it's the number hitting the Windows Update servers

Not really. What about the big organizations that download the updates once and redistribute them internally - using that figure only gives a fraction of the total number.

Re:You should not.

[Anonymous Coward]

Except we're not talking about the last 5 years. Maybe 1 year, if we're talking about 'Vista failures' and netbooks causing the issue.

During the last year, GOOG has consistently been at or below MSFT. AAPL climbed above for maybe 3-4 months but then dipped back below.

Please try and keep talking about the same things that everyone else is. We could randomly pick various timelines that suit our point of views, or we could actually talk about the kind of period that was initially posited in the first post.

Incidentally, if you look at the five year view, there hasn't been a lot of change for MSFT. AAPL and GOOG have both boomed and then shrunk again massively, especially since the start of 2008. I wonder where the long-term smart money is.

Re:You should not.

[jcr]

I wonder where the long-term smart money is.

In gold.

-jcr

Re:You should not.

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, you'd have 100% more credibility if you weren't anon.

How much credibility are you saying that he has now? Is it zero? What is 100% more than zero? What's your point exactly?

Re:You should not.

[Free the Cowards]

Why does an effectively untraceable pseudonym confer any more credibility than being explicitly anonymous?

Re:You should not.

[ratboy666]

But those organizations do license counting -- Microsoft knows how many Vista are in use at those sites.

It's the Vista bundles we are talking about.

Re:You should not.

[Anonymous Coward]

MICRO$HAFT$ not "censoring" you today Will? Just not today?

Re:You should not.

[JAlexoi]

WTF? Are you mad? Stock prices have not much to do with performance... It's more like investor appreciation index or perceived value. And it is purely relative.
Company performance and stock performance only correlate on long term charts.

Re:You should not.

[JAlexoi]

R you kidding? It dropped $200, not long ago.

Re:You should not.

[rtechie]

Microsoft have the precise number of Vista machines in the wild - it's the number hitting the Windows Update servers.

Actually, no. MS can't necessarily track the number of systems hitting corporate Windows Server Update Servers, and that's a big chunk of MS' sales. Licenses shipped is a much better metric for that reason. Some shops/individuals ARE downgrading to XP largely because they don't want to upgrade their images. The same thing happened with 2K. Eventually, they'll get around to it. I don't see the corporate world abandoning Windows for Linux en masse.

Re:You should not.

[jcr]

It seems that you missed the phrase "long term" in the question I was responding to.

-jcr

Re:You should not.

[Z34107]

You can't blame the recession when M$ underperforms the economy in general and other companies do better.

The part of the post before the "$" was insightful. Somebody hijacked twitter's account!

Re:You should not.

[Yfrwlf]

Instead, XP and others are in higher demand, that's the main reason MS hasn't canned it. Most computers will skip Vista or head someplace else. XP is being sold as an upgrade in many places, which many times is a scam because the customer ends up buying both OSes.

The statistics for running Vista copies in the wild is abysmally tiny compared to what they wanted. I'm pretty sure they were fully expecting Vista use to be around 70% or so by now, but instead XP is 70% and Vista is somewhere lost in the 10-20% range. I, too, am shocked, because like you say, they always try hard to force it on everyone, but that just didn't work this time. Finally the mules have bucked back hard enough to make them listen.

Eventually of course they'll break under the pressure that Linux is building up, but as always it still has it's problems to be worked out. Cross-distro application handling, I'm looking at you, among other things.

Re:You should not.

[Yfrwlf]

Well, they will try to make all that go away with Vista 2 (aka Win7). =P

Maybe if they add more sparklies it'll finally be awesome........nah.

Re:You should not.

[David Gerard]

You're assuming significant numbers of Vista installations are in use in business. This appears not to be the case.

Re:You should not.

[rufus t firefly]

I'll second that.

The last new machine I bought was my Thinkpad, which came with some variant of Vista on it. I never booted it with Vista, but rather installed Ubuntu over it and never looked back.

I haven't had any problems with the machine, and definitely haven't missed having some Windows variant on there. I think as people stop equating "PC = Windows", they'll realize that they don't really need it. Most people I know use their machines for word processing, email, web "surfing" and sometimes instant messaging... none of which require Microsoft *anything*.

In the end, if you like Vista, use Vista, if you like Linux, use Linux. Just don't assume that everyone *has* to use one or the other.

Re:You should not.

[rufus t firefly]

You're assuming significant numbers of Vista installations are in use in business. This appears not to be the case.

That's also true. My company has a number of Windows laptops, and we own a number of Vista licenses, yet not a single one of the machines actually has Vista installed. Not sure who decided to buy the bulk licenses ...

Microsoft has definitely been pushing Vista pretty hard as a replacement for XP, but like most of their other "upgrades", it requires more horsepower for very little improvement.

Re:You should not.

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft have the precise number of Vista machines in the wild - it's the number hitting the Windows Update servers

Ummm, no. Maybe home users can be counted that way, but most businesses do not let their systems update on their own from Microsoft. They either patch using WSUS, or a 3rd-party utility.

Re:You should not.

[Anonymous Coward]

Company performance and stock performance only correlate on long term charts.

Microsoft's stock price stopped growing eight years ago. I'd say that's a long enough term.

Re:You should not.

[rtechie]

Actually, I was explaining WHY we aren't seeing a lot of Vista in the corporate world. Sites haven't upgraded their images yet. Most sites are still using Server 2003 and Exchange 2003 too. Upgrading takes a while in the corporate world, always has. Echange 2007, Server 2008 and Vista are all trickling in. Many sites are looking to roll out Server 2008 and Vista at the time and that was the plan LONG BEFORE Vista launched. Expect to see a lot of sites upgrade NEXT YEAR, despite the economic downturn. Though with a quick release of Windows 7, many sites might wait for that.

The point is, they're NOT abandoning Windows for Linux. They're sticking with XP and waiting on Vista or maybe waiting for Windows 7 assuming it ships quickly enough. I've seen more adoption of MacOS, largely because the laptop hardware is very compelling and recent versions of MacOS intergrate with Active Directory a lot better.

Re:You should not.

[Anonymous Coward]

I have had the same request, "get that damned Vista thing off my computer!!". I usually just install Ubuntu Linux and Open Office. The drivers are not usually a problem, and once I show them how easy it is they like the systems. What pisses me off is that folks have to pay for the Vista to be installed on their machines in the first place! ;-( BB

Yeah, I'm seeing these everywhere

[93 Escort Wagon]

Oh, wait. No, I'm not.

Re:Yeah, I'm seeing these everywhere

[Lumpy]

Thanks for letting us know. Hey everyone, the entire planet is where 93escortwagon is!

I'll tell all the students at the MSU and UofM campuses that they cant use the eee's and aspire one's I see all over the place, because you said so..

Have you proven that the universe revolves around you yet? we are all waiting with baited breath.

Re:Yeah, I'm seeing these everywhere

[dvice_null]

I bet you have no windows in the basement?

Re:Yeah, I'm seeing these everywhere

[andreyvul]

The eunuch's command line keeps me happy.

Re:Yeah, I'm seeing these everywhere

[Jesus_666]

Hey everyone, the entire planet is where 93escortwagon is!

Well, where do you think the phrase "it's a small world" comes from?

Re:Yeah, I'm seeing these everywhere

[Anonymous Coward]

Bated breath.

Open Source

[Reikk]

This is yet another example of open source software hurting the American economy.

Windows Profits Down

[CopaceticOpus]

Should we take up a collection?

eventually...

[Anonymous Coward]

...some CEO is going to be facing the whole board and a flock of big shareholders, and they are going to ask why, after he dropped millions on windows licenses, plus did updates, that they lost a million customer records that the bad guys got and did something with them, and microsoft goes "tough shit, read the EULA". He is going to go ballistic at that point.. He will then push what will be a land mark case that is going to the supreme court, and they will *force* software makers to offer bare bones warranties, as in "suitable for purpose" to be connected to the internet and not get owned easy. That EULA and license to use stuff that insists you have zero rights or means for recompensation due to bad design will be found to be utterly bogus, and there is precedent, you can't contract your rights away, especially on top of the fact that they are awarded *patents* on software like it is a real product and not just a "work of art" as would be the case if it was copyright only. That's the big ass difference there, once they insisted on patents. It is a product, it should perform like a product, it should have minimum warranties like any other product, and be free from glaring defects if it is sold or leased. And MS and others will then have to suck it up, always offer fast good updates, not charge for them, and even be forced to give rebates back if they exceed some computer lemon law, which will be coming right after that first ruling. They could very easily be charged for damages at that point, if the law is something like no more than three major defects per release, after that, it is a lemon. That will slow release cycles and force the software industry to grow up and write really good code, and get rid of the release often, fulla bugs, charge up the wazoo business model they have now. Now FOSS might be-I would think so anyway- a different story if it is given away for free as in cost, probably no damages or warranty if you accept it is a perpetual free beta, but stuff that costs large folding money..nope..eventually all it is going to take is one really freaking annoyed CEO whose fleet of MS PCs got hosed to get this normal product warranty yes, stupid EULA no, nonsense into the courts. Either that or all the software makers will universally drop all notions of patenting, one or the other, and all of them will offer free as in cost copyright only software and make their loot offering customization and other services.

tamed the eeepc???

[nimbius]

give me a break. even with a 10" eeepc stuffed with microsoft bloatware, im going to do the same thing ive always done with my new windows laptop: return the OS for a refund.

funny though how with my eeepc 901 they have a section in the manual at the end guiding users on how to get back to a windows installation. not certain if it correlates with their statements on "no one is buying these linux laptops" or not, but id be curious to see an unbiased (read: not in bed with redmond) party evaluate whether anyone is buying laptops with linux.

the one thing redmond cant fight on this is i believe price. as a wise man once said, "if your going up against 'free' you'd better have a damned good product."

Re:tamed the eeepc???

[Ant P.]

Wait... you bought a 10" eee with windows just to return windows and install Linux? The same eee that comes in 8GB windows and 20GB Linux configurations?

Re:tamed the eeepc???

[Anonymous Coward]

Well... I'am...
...but I have been running Linux (on my work laptop) for the last 5 yaers... in a Microsoft environment.

Re:tamed the eeepc???

[daver00]

The thing I found when I went looking for a linux eee pc is that nobody stocked them. So I bought a windows version and immediately (like as soon as I got home) installed Xubuntu. Install the custom eee pc ubuntu kernel and a 3rd party app to get the osd and function keys working, everything works perectly, including compiz. It is the most perfect linux install I have ever owned. But after getting off track there my point is that few vendors even stock linux eeepc's where I live, so I think that accounts for a lot.

There are some other stupid things Asus has done: linux versions of the later models do not come with bluetooth and Xandros is an absolute piece of shit. Basically I am with you there, XP on a netbook makes no sense to me whatsoever. All the reasons I still use windows: games, photoshop, CAD, office, are irrelevant on a netbook.

microsoft (with a $)

[FudRucker]

microsoft's exorbitant prices and chronic vulnerabilities made it necessary...

people want to use their computers, not be used by a corporate giant and third parties nickeling & dimeing them to the limit at every corner...

Re:microsoft (with a $)

[mk2mark]

I'm sorry, but how can that be considered insightful unless you consider $50 for XP (retail) exorbitant?

Re:microsoft (with a $)

[KozmoKramer]

$50 dollars for XP is exorbitant. $1 for XP is also exorbitant. The cost to download Linux = $0.

Re:microsoft (with a $)

[mk2mark]

Just because Linux is free (mostly), that doesn't make it unethical for other people to sell an operating system.

Re:microsoft (with a $)

[KozmoKramer]

Selling a product that exposes 98% of users to potentially serious problems, such as, ID Theft and data loss, is unethical.

Re:microsoft (with a $)

[mk2mark]

That makes absolutely no sense. Why only 98% of users? Is there a special safe version of Windows that only 2% of people have? And what percentage of Linux users do you suppose are safe?

Pure and utter drivel, you make no point and everything you have said is fanboy FUD.

Chill dude.

[turgid]

It's slashdot, don't take it so seriously. You're allowed to say M$. You're allowed to hang out here when the pub's shut and there's nothing on TV.

Vista is a failure by most standards and Microsoft's OS monopoly is gradually being eroded. This recession is helping.

Vista only "sells" because PeeCees come with it installed by default. Don't kid yourself that the situation has changed in the last few years. MS still has a monopoly and uses every dirty trick in the book to keep competing operating systems off of new machines.

Also, remember that a substantial proportion of new (Vista) machines get reinstalled with Windows XP legally or not.

Never mind, the future is bright. Windows 7 will come with 256 threads, comrade. Double-plus good!

My Communist-Anti-American-Virus-Cancer Linux PeeCees eat 256 threads for breakfast. So do my All-American Sun SPARC/Solaris boxes. 10 lines of C says so.

I don't like Microsoft, and I hate Windows. Bill Gates, Steve Balmer et. al. are a bunch of crooks. I'm human, I have opinions. Twitter's cool. It's allowed opinions, and it's nice to see them amongst the pro-M$ apology this site has become.

Re:Chill dude.

[abigor]

You have confused cores with threads. They are entirely distinct entities. 256 cores is a hell of a lot, and I'm not sure if Linux, or indeed any Unix, supports that many yet.

Re:Chill dude.

[turgid]

I have not confused cores with threads. Cores are simply individual CPUs integrated on to a chip. AMD and intel are currently up to 4 on a chip. Sun does 8 on a chip (with 8 thread contexts per core).

Solaris, Linux and many other unixes have been scaling (not merely being just "aware of") many more that 256 CPUs (call them cores) for well over a decade.

Do some googling. Solaris especially and linux scale almost linearly to thousands of CPUs per system today. To say that Windows' performance is embarrassing in this respect would be an understatement.

Re:Chill dude.

[renoX]

Uh, why would this *particular metric* be embarrassing?

If you look at boot time or responsiveness Linux and Windows are significanty worst than BeOS was (yes, I've read about Arjan de Van Jen work on Linux's boot time, but until it's part of distribution and works with the majority of PC it's not very useful), in terms of desktop market share Linux is tiny compared to Windows, etc.

Face it, each OS has its strong point and its weak point..

Re:Chill dude.

[abigor]

I know what a core is. I thought you were referring to software threads per process, not core thread contexts. Apologies.

Re:Chill dude.

[Toreo asesino]

Vista is a failure by most standards and Microsoft's OS monopoly is gradually being eroded. This recession is helping.

I'm sorry, but an OS that racks up that number of orders, pre-installed or otherwise, is not a failure on any level. Something many anti-vista people forget when they knee-jerk the response "sales != installs" is that yes! You're right! There's a tonne more people that have pirated it too, and thus swing the figure the other way.

In my honest opinion, there's two things that Vista did badly; 1, released too early (for reasons that constitute their own debate), and 2, not enough work done on trimming fat so it runs on older/cheaper machines. We're seeing inroads being made by Linux (and XP) because of this.

Point 1 is now fixed, point 2 is in progress a.k.a Windows 7 (Title is 'Windows 7 will be lean, faster, and even embedded')

And don't for a minute think twitter does the FOSS movement any favours at all. I actually wonder if he too is on the M$ payroll, he does that good a job of giving level-headed objectivity on the pros/cons of OSS vs MS.

Re:Chill dude.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why the fuck does BeOS keep getting thrown around here like it was real alternative? Go use BeOS then dickhead, see how far you get when, you know, you actually need to do something!

Re:Chill dude.

[JAlexoi]

Ha! In progress? With MS that might be a LOOONG time....

Re:Chill dude.

[drsmithy]

In my honest opinion, there's two things that Vista did badly; 1, released too early (for reasons that constitute their own debate), and 2, not enough work done on trimming fat so it runs on older/cheaper machines. We're seeing inroads being made by Linux (and XP) because of this.

Except point 2 is rubbish. At release, Vista was usable on machines up to 6-7 years old (ca. 800Mhz-1Ghz P3), with minor and cheap upgrades (RAM, video card if you wanted Aero).

Re:Chill dude.

[Bungie]

My Communist-Anti-American-Virus-Cancer Linux PeeCees eat 256 threads for breakfast. So do my All-American Sun SPARC/Solaris boxes. 10 lines of C says so.

Looking in Task Manager explorer.exe alone is using 46 threads! I really hope Windows breaks the 8-bit thread barrier soon...

Re:Chill dude.

[innerweb]

You mean Microsoft gave the computer companies a choice? I thought they were no longer allowed to install XP (even though the computer companies were kicking and screaming all the way out). What other desktop OS from Microsoft are they allowed to install?

InnerWeb

Must be joking

[CarpetShark]

Most PC users aren't even aware of the concept of a filesystem. A good portion aren't aware of the possibility of installing programs and using them without an internet connection, or that needing an account on a website to use some basic thing is a loss of autonomy. Some users are getting more PC saavy, but many are barely hanging on as their boss tells them to type at the new-fangled glowy-box.

Bad summary

[Anonymous Coward]

While they may have successfully tamed the Asus EEE PC but, they can't hold back everyone who wants to make a buck on cheap hardware and free software

Oww! GRAMMAR! Seriously, how hard would it be for the editors to actually, y'know, edit things?

That cackling sound you don't hear

[symbolset]

It's Jim Allchin. Because he fled this train wreck by hopping off as the train left the station and is now enjoying his island paradise. He's so far away you can't hear him chuckle. But giggling he is.

He got his.

Why not a MacBook?

[Anonymous Coward]

MacBooks are just as cheap as these netbooks. Why just go with a Mac that has a tried and true, 100% secure OS?

Re:Why not a MacBook?

[Lumpy]

Really? show me where to buy a G4 iBook with 1 gig in it for $350.00 in new shape with a new battery and 160gig hard drive.

Oh and make it very portable and have a very bright screen instead of the very yellowed ones that G4's are known for when they are used.

Also the G3 toilet seats are incredibly slow compared to these netbooks, and again only come with dead batteries and no ram or hard drive space.

Can you please explain?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you please explain why you'd say "IBM, Google and RedHat are doing fine" when they
are clearly not?

Can you please explain why you've been doing this:

http://slashdot.org/~SockDisclosure/journal/214377

Can you please explain why you added a former XEmacs maintainer and
free software advocate here:

http://slashdot.org/~twitter/journal/204737

After he posted this reply to you:

http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1009565&cid=25537739

Can you please explain why you do things like these:

http://slashdot.org/~twitter/journal/206773

Can you please explain why you've spent years posting things like these to Slashdot:

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=112229&cid=9521025

Can you please explain why after trolling Slashdot for so long you think you deserve to
have your submissions accepted and your comments modded up?

It's not, it's all just fanboy bullsh*t

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not true by any measure. It's just a lead-in meme, like so many others. That's how Slashdot works, if you haven't noticed. twitter says "M$ is underperforming the industry", provides no proof of that whatsoever and then the next guy uses it as the argument du jour. The mods think it sounds impressive, and that's that. The other part where IBM, Google, RedHat and everybody else is doing super great while "M$ is dying" is also not true, of course.

See how that works? False Assertion, False Assertion, False Conclusion, Profit!

Been that way for years. It's a form of mass hysteria, I suppose. I don't know why people are still surprised when they see it.

- JM (posting AC because I can see where the moderation on this one is going)

Re:It's not, it's all just fanboy bullsh*t

[jcr]

It's not true by any measure.

Guess again. MSFT shares have been declining since Ballmer got the job.

-jcr

Re:It's not, it's all just fanboy bullsh*t

[abigor]

While I too am hopeful of MS's comeuppance, at least to some degree, their share price is largely a reflection of their shitty dividend policy. MS hasn't accepted the fact that they are now a value stock, like any other blue chip, and not a growth stock. They need to raise their dividends to reflect this, or the market will continue to punish them.

Re:It's not, it's all just fanboy bullsh*t

[jcr]

their share price is largely a reflection of their shitty dividend policy

I would say that their failure to recognize that their days of being a growth stock is just one of many examples of management incompetence.

-jcr

Re:It's not, it's all just fanboy bullsh*t

[jcr]

Damn it, hit the submit button when I meant to preview.

I would say that their failure to recognize that their days of being a growth stock are over is just one of many examples of management incompetence.

-jcr

Re:It's not, it's all just fanboy bullsh*t

[abigor]

I agree with you. Their top-level management is way out of touch and still maintains that paranoid, on-the-edge-of-death mindset they had back in the '80s.

Re:It's not, it's all just fanboy bullsh*t

[turing_m]

I would say that their failure to recognize that their days of being a growth stock are over is just one of many examples of management incompetence./blockquote I think Bill realized this. I remember reading an article in the late 1990s about him hiring someone to invest on his behalf as he began to sell his MS shares.

All Hail the fall of Microsoft and the Beginning

[KozmoKramer]

All Hail the fall of Microsoft and the Beginning of the Linux and OS X/etc... generations. I long for the day when most users use Linux on a PC or a MAC, and the lame Windows dies. Imagine a day when Linux is the main Desktop or Server OS and Wine has been perfected to run your old windows applications. There will be no need to the hassle that is Microsoft and its' products.

You're right to a point.

[Fantastic Lad]

As you describe, I still run and require my desktop setup. I only picked up a netbook to replace my worn out but trusty old WindowsCE portable word processing device from 1998. I was never in the market for a new machine capable of running Vista in the first place.

Although, when the new school term began this Fall, the guys at the computer store told me that university students descended like a plague of locusts and cleaned out their stock of netbooks in under a week. --Sales which would likely have been Vista laptops otherwise, so I can see that as a source of MS misery. I have not talked with any student owners of netbooks, so I don't know how happy they are with them, but I know that mine has become indispensable to me.

I might also be led to believe that with the influx of Linux netbooks, it has raised general public awareness of Linux which by extension lowers the fear-of-new-things for people buying fresh desktop systems. I bet Ubuntu has gotten a boost from emboldened regular consumers of new regular systems as a result. I do know a couple of young twenty-something year-olds who talk about their Ubuntu systems without any trace of irony or awareness that it might be seen as unusual.

This post was written on an eee1000 running XP.

-FL

The best thing since sliced bread

[alegrepublic]

My Linux-based eee 901 is the best computer I ever had. The Atom chip sucks compared to the multicore CPUs in my other computers. Its SSD is tiny compared to massive 1TB drives I have in other computers. Its graphics capabilities suck compared to my game desktop. But (a biiig but) it is so
lightweight that I carry it with me all the time, and the battery lasts me a full day! In a month I have been assimilated and now am part of the
symbiotic Me-and-my-EEE borg. It is amazing to be able to have a real computer with me even in the toilet. The Nokia 800 tablet was the closest I got before to this but it was not a full-capability computer, and it showed. There is reason for Microsoft to be scared because they see resistance will be futile. I sometimes walk while typing on my EEE without fear of breaking my hard drive. I always drive with my EEE on the dashboard. More powerful netbooks miss the whole point. They are just laptops, maybe cheaper and less heavy, but not good enough for assimilation.

Re:The best thing since sliced bread

[JAlexoi]

Well, some of us, real geeks, actually HAVE computers in the toilet... And it flushes too...

Re:The best thing since sliced bread

[Anonymous Coward]

I did this exactly ~5 y. ago with sony C1XD notebook.. so lightwaight that i carried it everywhere.. backpack.. car's dashboard etc... I also coded my totaly own phone and sms application with nokia pcmci datacard... of course it C1XD was ~2400$ at that time.

So whats the difference with netbooks?

1.Cost.
2.ppl realized that its not about quantum of functionality but usability

So ... good luck netbooks rebels... I bought vista ultimate for my 4 cores AMD and I love it (API SDK Visual studio is real one you have to beat with opensource) as per my notebook or netbook...well there is not any....
On the go I am using HTC HD resolustion almost same as netbook with enough power to run native skype, divx, flash video .. using office files.....

Real battle for MS are not short terms netbooks but Mobile PC currently known as smartphones... IPHONE's OSx, ANDROID(whatever)

Attacked from two ends...

[ThousandStars]

Microsoft is being attacked from two sides: on the low end by netbooks and on the high end by Apple. The former is presumably capturing a large share of those who would otherwise buy $600 - $1,000 laptops, while the latter has been gaining marketshare almost exclusively in the $1,000+ market, where the cost of Windows is less noticeable relative to the cost of the computer itself. People who care about computing use OS X or Linux, as Paul Graham said: "So not only does the desktop no longer matter, no one who cares about computers uses Microsoft's anyway."

Combine the netbook and OS X trends with the Linux becoming increasingly easy to use for novices and a worldwide recession, and one has problems brewing for Microsoft. Not fatal problems, to be sure, but problems nonetheless, and problems whose solution is not obvious.

Bah! Orion Blastar begs to differ.

[Orion Blastar]

In consumer electronic stores there are $350 Laptops (after rebate) with Intel Graphic chips and 2G of RAM a 120G HD. that run Vista and cost less than a Netbook.

The $350 Laptop can easily be reformatted to run XP, Linux, AROS, or whatever.

If it is an open box special you can get one for as low as $300.

Re:Bah! Orion Blastar begs to differ.

[waferhead]

by Orion Blastar (457579) on Saturday November 08, @06:42PM (#25690583) Homepage
"In consumer electronic stores there are $350 Laptops (after rebate) with Intel Graphic chips and 2G of RAM a 120G HD. that run Vista and cost less than a Netbook.

The $350 Laptop can easily be reformatted to run XP, Linux, AROS, or whatever."

And they absolutely scream running Linus.
(At least compared to a Netbook)

Having said that, I spied a neat little netbook at Target the other night, I wanted to take it home, soooo cuuuuute...
And only $299. Think it was the EEE, ran Linux.

Re:Bah! Orion Blastar begs to differ.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yea, and at fifteen vs nine inches (to the third power) makes them 4.63 times bigger too! Triple win for real laptops!

Nostalgia.

[Anonymous Coward]

Analysts have predicted the fall of MS's business model when computers break below $250/unit retail. We are there now, and it has shown in the bottom line."

If I remember, the Commodore 64 was not priced much higher than this. Look at the revolution it caused.

Should be powerful enough to run a Commodore emulator too.

It's easy to blame Microsoft!

[Anonymous Coward]

Customers will blame YOU, not them.

Everyone knows that Windows has lots of bugs and BSODs. Hell, I'd try to cut a deal with Apple and have my techs say, "Vista has lots of problems. Have you considered getting a Mac?"

oh boy

[Anonymous Coward]

Another one of twitter's "special" friends. Great.

Can you stick it in your briefcase?

[Colin Smith]

In consumer electronic stores there are $350 Laptops (after rebate) with Intel Graphic chips and 2G of RAM a 120G HD. that run Vista and cost less than a Netbook

Handbag?

Or is it 30cmx30cm, weighing in at 3kg?
 

Just ban the notebooks

[daem0n1x]

Why innovate? I say, ban the notebooks. Progress? Let's stop progress, who told you progress could stand in the way of profit?

Re: "play knife-fight-in-a-telephone-booth"

[jvin248]

Great Quote!

If the telcos are intent on offering netbooks subsidized with service fee... why even bring MS into the phone booth in the first place? It's not like the telco is selling their plan based on MS's brand (which Apple advertising is squashing daily). MS doesn't have the best reputation among hardware vendors and strategically would a telco want to risk getting tied to MS? The telcos will be selling their service and their brand.

So the telcos may even offer "ATT-buntu" as a privately branded Linux, which they could do as long as they abide by the GPL requirements. Or just offer standard Ubuntu/etc "for free" and still sell the connection, voip, and long distance services - since that is where they plan to make their money anyway.

Re: "play knife-fight-in-a-telephone-booth"

[Shotgun]

Or just offer standard Ubuntu/etc "for free" and still sell the connection, voip, and long distance services - since that is where they plan to make their money anyway.

That would be their best plan of action. Since they are selling a data plan, a smart move for them would be to make a lot of programs easily accessible. The more applications people have access to, the more they need to access the net for tutorials and sharing what they create. It'll be in the telco's best interest to pack the PC's with useful applications vs the typical crapware that has been shoveled into new boxes over the years.

Netbooks bite thumb at windoze

[Taibhsear]

As a new owner of a Linux EEE PC 1000 I bite my thumb at Microsoft!

That said, the mandriva interface was a bit bubbly for my tastes. I put Ubuntu EEE 8.0.1 on it instead. But the wireless was shoddy. Upgraded to 8.10 and installed adam's kernel and the proper wireless drivers and it works perfect now. I'm still tweaking it to get the battery life up higher but I'm surprised and relieved at the processing power of the atom cpu. My linux netbook seems to run considerably faster than most of the more powerful xp laptops my friends have. At first I thought having no optical drive was madness, but after using it I have trouble understanding why I even need to use one (barring music and video backup). I install from the internet or transfer over the home network.

Different target markets.

[DrYak]

What if that software cost $20,000, and runs only on Windows with no alternatives? $200 is cheap in comparison. {...} for most people, it's worth paying the $100 -$200 to get an OS that runs all the other popular software.

There lies the entire problem Microsoft is encountering. When "all the popular software" include tons of high cost extremely cool softwares, indeed those mere 100$ aren't much.

But suddenly there's a whole new wave of users whose entire library of "all the software" which is "popular" in their segment boils down to activities such as...
browsing blogs, reading mails, calling with skype.
Things that only require a webbrowser, a mail client and skype. And with the big trend toward Web2.0 mail platforms like GMail, you can even scratch the mail client (as you can already scratch the IM client : almost any chatting system today has a Web implementation : either web-only like facebook, 1rst party like GTalk or 3rd party like multi-protocole Meebo).

Today there's almost NO OS which lacks a web browser. You have covered 99% of uses for which people buy netbooks. And you can even toss in more functionnality to make the machine more attractive : displaying picture from the camera, a small light word processor, etc. All this still trivial on most operating systems.
Even Skype although being closed source, is ported to Linux.

Everything these users needs can be done with any modern OS.
No-one of them is going to need anything more. Any "serious" business is going to be done on their home computer. Nobody is going to install a 20'000$ business tool on a small "email machine".
The 20k $ tool goes on the 2k $ machine.
Same for gaming (the other major market at which Windows is strong). WoW goes on the huge gamestation at home.
Their Eee PC is only to quickly check e-mails between lectures. If they need playing so much, there are Flash mini-games.

All the traditional advantages of Windows aren't relevant on a netbook.

Add to this the fact that OS is bundled with the computer (no direct means of perceiving the cost), it's very wise to set the retail price high.

Unless the computer itself gets so cheap that it cost the same order of price range as the OS.
And that's the case with netbooks.

So now you understand the choice of hardware manufacturer :
either you go for the OS which :
- covers everything your users wants
- cost nothing in terms of license
- has minimal cost for deploying
- and can be easily scaled down to run on cheap hardware (for fuck's sake, it can be even further scaled down, to run as a firmware on most DSL routers)
- is the cheapest solution (specially taking into account that your target market are poor students who'll be interested in the cheapest email machine as possible)
- and you probably have already experience scaling and customizing it, because you're a cheap Asian manufacturer and probably also sell a whole legion of network enabled gizmo (routers, RAID server, print servers, webcams, etc.) which use some form or other of Linux as their firmware.

or you go for an OS which :
- could run tons of additional applications that your user will never install anyway (and that probably won't be handled by the cheap hardware anyway)
- has a OEM licensing cost which is nearly as high as the hardware it self
- has either scaliability or maintenability issue (WinXP is deprecated, Vista can't run on minimalistic hardware).

The choice is clear and it explains the sudden massive success of Linux in the netbook segment.