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Microsoft Boasts 96% Netbook Penetration
An anonymous reader writes "Citing figures from market research firm NPD, Microsoft says Windows' share of the US netbook market has ballooned from less than 10% in the first half of 2008 to 96% as of February. 'The growth of Windows on netbook PCs over the last year has been phenomenal,' wrote Brandon LeBlanc, Microsoft's in-house Windows blogger, in a post Friday. Information Week author Paul McDougall notes Microsoft's 8% decline in Windows sales is due to netbooks sporting Linux. How does Redmond make an 80% gain in netbook market share without the sales numbers reflecting that gain?"
For a short while people were willing to forgo Windows for the form factor and price of a netbook. Then Moore's law ticked over and Microsoft was able to enter that market - same price for the machine but with the specs that XP needs. Next iteration they'll be selling units with Vista on them. The only way to keep Microsoft out is to race to the bottom and there's no economic incentive for the hardware manufacturers to do that.
How we know is more important than what we know.
How does Redmond make an 80% gain in netbook market share without the sales numbers reflecting that gain?
That's easy, netbooks aren't sold in a comparable quantity, so a staggering increase of 80% reflects a tiny shift in the overall license count. Got any other braindead statistics questions for me?
I wonder if they count my shiny new Acer Aspire One? Yeah, it came with XP, and yeah, XP is still on the hard drive, but I installed Linux on the first day, and have spent about 1% of my time in Windows since then. I would call that a Linux computer, but I suppose they call it a Windows computer.
This goes against the prevailing wisdom here, but Linux is not necessarily the best OS for netbooks.
The newest netbooks have about as much CPU power and memory as a notebook computer made 3 years ago. That's enough to run windows XP and older Microsoft applications such as office 2003.
And, Windows has the overwhelming advantage it always did : it has an enormous existing software library that still dwarfs that of Linux. An operating system is an enormously powerful natural monopoly. It's time to admit that the only way Linux or MacOS could ever pull ahead and have the diversity of software Windows has is if Microsoft royally screws up over a period of years. Windows ME didn't even scratch Microsoft's monopoly, because everyone kept using Win98, and it appears that Vista is the same way.
Finally, I've heard many complain that the netbook manufacturers don't properly choose a good Linux distro and configure it with all the software a user is likely to ever need. If the manufacturers did that, pre-installing open office and VLC media player and firefox and the rest, and tuned the distro behind the scenes to run blazing fast on a flash disk, then Linux might have stayed a viable option.
I would assume Microsoft has also adapated to this market : they must be offering a substantial discount on the software license for a netbook. Wouldn't surprise me if they were selling "XP for netbook use" for $20 a license. It could very well be that it is cheaper to pay Microsoft than it is to pay the technical support costs for Linux.
A sale does not constitute usage. I bought mine with XP and later tried Ubuntu from a live CD using an external drive. My system ran faster and better on Ubuntu. So I installed it and I have not missed Windows on my netbook. Something tells me MS still counts me as an installed base.
WinCE won't have the attraction of WinXP. WinCE won't run J. Random Intel Win32 App. So you can license a bunch of mobile phone apps and WinCE or just skin a Linux install.
Let's not forget that Microsoft had to be dragged kicking and screaming into this market.
What devices do you think they are readying the new version of windows mobile for? smart phones and ARM devices.
FOSS has almost no penetration in the home markets. Sadly M$ plans to keep it that way as best they can. The only hope here is if enough vendors push Android or a FOSS solution despite the pressure they will have from M$.
After the debacle most of the vendors had in Linux support on their netbooks, most will be happy to use M$ if the licensing fees are low enough to offset the support cost savings.
You're doing the same thing by making up your own definition which excludes XP.
The fact that once XP is included in the definition the number of netbooks with XP on them vs Linux on them kind of implies that XP has some bearing on what people want on their netbooks.
> If you can do that with WinCE as well as Linux, then what difference does it make?
First off, Linux has a full software stack. A real working Firefox with most of the expected plugins, OO.o, etc. WinCE has what exactly? To date it, and the apps written for it, have mostly been geared around PDAs and smart phones, usually with a touch screen.
WinCE isn't Windows. The main advantage Windows has for the average customer is the known quantity. It's Windows, just like on the other machines they interact with at home, school, work, friends, etc. The same programs run, etc. WinCE has none of those advantages, in fact the association with Windows will only confuse as it will lead the clueless to think it IS Windows and then be disillusioned when it is discovered to be something completely different.
WinCE will raise the per unit cost of the machine though, and if it isn't to cut too deeply into Microsoft's profits it is going to have to cost a lot to keep the monopoly rents flowing in. Meanwhile the pengin is still Free except for the ARM port of the Flash plugin.
Democrat delenda est
Even though I am a Linux user, if I were to purchase a netbook, it would have Windows on it. This is because of M$'s licensing scam. If I purchased one without Windows and then would up needing it later, it would cost me about $200 for a copy. The Windows netbook doesn't cost much more, and the Linux distros that ship on them aren't the ones for me. Thus it makes no sense for me to buy a Linux netbook. I can just install my favourite distoro on it anyway, and I have a copy of Windows for the thing if I need it later.
Last week I walked into no fewer than 20 different computer stores here in Taiwan (the home of ASUS, Acer, MSI, etc), big and small, in order to buy a Linux netbook. But despite the fact that some of them displayed as many as 20 different brands and models, I found exactly 0 (zero!) netbooks shipping with Linux. Zero, nada, nothing! It just doesn't exist any more.
So yes, I believe Microsoft and its 96% figure. While people had choice between Linux and Windows, the figure was very different, but since the consumers are no longer offered a Linux option, even 96% seems low. The situation with netbooks is now exactly the same as with laptops - it's 2009 and it's still impossible to buy one without Windows pre-installed!
I always have to laugh when I read news about EU suing Microsoft for bundling a browser or a media player with Windows, but fails to see the real issue - Microsoft's complete stronghold over hardware manufacturers. ASUS, Acer, MSI, Dell, HP - they all "recommend Windows for everyday computing" on their web sites. Out of their free will, no doubt...
That made me sad. Alphas were good chips.
Viral software licensing is not freedom, it is in fact GNU/Socialism.
I maintain that a netbook running Windows, or even a standard Linux build, isn't really a netbook. It's really just a small, underpowered laptop.
... all of the things that you didn't really want to drag out a PC to do, but didn't really want to cram onto a phone either ... and with a snappy operating system that boots up quickly and gets the job done without calling attention to itself. If you have to run Windows Update on your netbook to protect it from the worm-of-the-week ... you've totally missed the point.
The whole point of netbooks was supposed to be that they *weren't* PC's, they were consumer electronics devices. Quickie access to the Internet, a little photo sharing and music playing
I'm more interested in the next generation of netbooks -- the ones that will cost $150-200 and run for eight or nine hours on one battery charge -- running low-power ARM and a designed for small form factor OS like Android. That generation of hardware will prove that a netbook isn't supposed to act like a PC. (And even if Microsoft weasels its way into that market by building Windows for ARM, they'll still find themselves at a disadvantage because x86 Windows software won't run on it. In fact, they'll even be faced with an unprecedented rate of customers returning them for just that reason.)
Let PC's be PC's and let netbooks be netbooks. They're not the same thing.
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I got one of them fancy Samsung NC10 netbooks (Atom 1.6GHz, gig RAM, XP pre-installed).
My OS of choice?
Mozilla Firefox.
At least that's where I spend 99% of my time on it.
Aside from the fact that MS probably counts shipped units to come up with its "96%" claim, does it really matter whether Linux geeks or Microsoft (or both) claim me as a user? The underlying OS identity is about as relevant to me as the manufacturer of the 2.5" hard drive the unit comes with. I stuck with XP since it was the path of least resistance.
Discuss...
They did it in a time that there was a difference between server-grade, enterprise-grade and desktop-grade software. Their desktop software was DOS and Windows NT wasn't really usable for any type of desktop use. The code base was very small, 1 or 2 API's to speak off, the video and some other subsystems were in userland (not integrated in the kernel) and only a few simple apps. They were also helped by IBM and had developers that were used to programming for multiple architectures.
Now things have become a mess. Over time, those architectures have died off in the mainstream in favor of x86. You can use Windows Server on a desktop, Windows XP as a server, they're all the same really. A whole lot of stuff that's now ultimately complex sits in the kernel and would need re-developed and rebuilt from the ground up to be usable on other architectures (DirectX, .NET, Internet Explorer, a whole lot of device drivers...). Just look at the problem it is to get an x86 extension (64-bit) supported decently.
On the other hand Linux over time has always been modular and over time has been kept running (willingly or not) on hardware that's classically Big Iron (Unix) domain and lately handheld and embedded devices even though some of it (PPC Linux) might be slightly outdated it still works. That's because the main developers (Linus and friends) don't necessarily need to be involved in the development for such hardware whereas Microsoft does need to be involved for such changes (and if it's not profitable, it doesn't get done). A single company or even a single developer can keep track of it in his spare time as long as it's profitable for them, they don't need to wait on their vendor.
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A good fraction of netbooks have Win XP or Vista basic wiped in favor of Ubuntu et al. Not to mention many being sold with it preinstalled. I would go so far as to say linux has a much higher penetration on netbooks than it does on consumer desktops. It's funny how MS has spun that the other way.
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
Yea, love my linux netbook. I am going to order another.
If there is someone to blame in this mess, it is the netbook makers for insisting on putting their own bastardized versions of linux on them. Jut put one of a million stock distros on it, and provide the drivers. The community will do the rest. Once they figure that out, their profit margins for linux will double.
Living in Chile
Well, it was posted on w Windows blog and we all know Microsoft have a special relationship with the truth.
I went off-track too, but a little differently.
The first thing I thought was "In related news, Malware Writers Boast 96% Netbook Penetration".
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
Shhh.. dont tell anyone.
It is the most widely used CPU in the world, but has never had any significant market share in the general purpose computing segments.
Its a processor for embedded devices, pure and simple.
"His name was James Damore."
... "penetrate better with 150% better penis" or some such nonsense. It's got as much validity as what MS is spewing here. You expect us to believe you, when even your internal numbers don't match up? If they do "match up", then the only explanation is that MS is, essentially, giving away their OS for free for the netbooks, or charging a paltry fee.
I almost fell bad for the Executive level staff at Microsoft (and do feel sorry for the rank-and-file employees), because the $200 and even $100 netbooks aren't far off. Like, supposedly, April.
Yes, we've heard the "$100 laptop" fo a while now (a year or two) but this time, we really are pretty much there (if, for no other reason, the fact that prices do keep dropping, in one regard or another, and ARM hardware is cheap).
And yes, these low-cost netbooks will have ARM processors, because there's no other economic way to do it. And people will buy them - as long as Youtube, a modern browser, a decent word processor, and a chat client are there, 90% of users will be just fine.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Well, if you're talking a full version of Windows XP or Windows 7, then yes, this would be a tall order. However, if they start with their Windows Mobile software and build their way up at some point, they will meet in the middle.
I'm not sure if I want this to happen or see Microsoft ram Windows 7 on an ARM processor and watch the steaming pile of FAIL.
We'll see which strategy they pick. Knowing Microsoft, it'll be the latter one. It'll be fun to watch but painful on computer usability for some time.
"Be particularly skeptical when presented with evidence confirming what you already believe." -
The problem with ARM for MS is that one of the major reasons people give for sticking with Windows is:
"But I can't run $APP without Windows!"
Take away their ability to run $APP anyway and they'll be just as well off on another OS. Which is where linux could win because the likes of debian already have the majority of their software available for ARM.
It might not win in any significant wat, but at that point you are starting to kick away at the dominance of the prevailing monoculture.