Your Next Netbook Spec, Courtesy of Microsoft (Update 2)
Microsoft has reigned in the netbook market, making it oh so easy for all of us to not worry about our future netbook spec. Why, you ask? Well, Microsoft in all it’s wisdom knows what’s best for it’s customers shareholders. What’s best for its shareholders is a higher ASP(Average Selling Price) for Windows. Initial plans for Windows 7 starter edition, like XP Starter Edition and Vista Starter Edition before it, was to cripple the operating systems ability to simultaneously run more than 3 foreground applications at once. Microsoft ultimately decided not to limit multitasking capability, but yet decided to restrict the hardware on which OEMs can install Windows 7 Starter Edition. Why limit the appeal of your own product? So you can upsell to higher priced options like Windows 7 Home Premium.
Windows 7 Starter Edition Hardware Limits:
- Screen Size: Up to 10.2 inches
- SSD/HDD Size: Up to 64/250 GB
- RAM: Up to 1GB
- CPU Cores: 1
- CPU Speed: 2GHz
The net market effect of Microsoft’s fiat is this:
- A prevailing inventory of fairly high-end($400-$500) netbooks with Windows XP Home Edition & Windows 7 Home Premium, but not Windows 7 Starter Edition.
- Microsoft’s choice to cripple mainstream netbooks(Sub $400) provides market share gaining opportunities for alternative OSs.
Microsoft executives readily concede their pricing faux pas with Windows XP on netbooks and want to take the release of Windows 7 as an opportunity to increase the ASP to traditional levels. I personally don’t believe executives at Microsoft when they say pricing XP was a mistake, it was simply the best tactical response to the disruptive new computing category that is the netbook. In hindsight, we may see Microsoft’s fiat power as the height of Wintel hegemony, but there is light at the end of the proverbial tunnel. To this blogger, that light is ARM and Google. I’ll elaborate in the next blog post.
References:
Computer World: Ballmer Confirms Windows 7 Restrictions for Netbooks
