As it continues to develop and polish Windows 7, Microsoft has made three fatal mistakes that will kill the operating system’s chances for success on Netbooks. Skeptical? Take a look at this reasoning from The VAR Guy.
First, a little applause for Microsoft. The company has done a reasonably good job developing Windows 7, according to early beta testers. There is some concern about security, but what else is new when it comes to a Microsoft operating system?
Now, onto the Netbook topic. Microsoft plans to offer Netbook makers Windows 7 Starter — a basic operating system with a serious (and artificial) limitation. It only runs up to three applications at once. Three applications? One, two, three reasons Windows 7 Starter will fail. Heck, even The VAR Guy’s kids run up to five applications on their Linux-based Asus Eee PC Netbook.
In its infinite wisdom, Microsoft has tried to counter Linux on Netbooks with Windows 7 Starter. But in the end, The VAR Guy predicts, the three application limit will kill all customer interest in Windows 7 Starter. And users who accidentally purchase Windows 7 Starter will be turned off by Microsoft’s artificial limitations.
By the way: WorksWithU — The VAR Guy’s sister site — predicted last week that the mainstream media would start to more aggressively mention Linux as they began to discover Windows 7’s limitations and flaws. Sure enough, that situation occured today when The Wall Street Journal pointed out Windows 7’s three-app limit and spent some ink on Linux.
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#4 Designating Windows 7: The Linux Killer. It can only fail on that count. Defining your product by your chosen competitor puts your competitor in control or your product to a degree.
As far as I’m concerned Microsoft has yet to make a consumer ready operating system. To be ready for the average person it must be able to stand on its own connected the Internet without the aid of third party anti-malware software. The cost of Microsoft’s not-ready-for-primetime operating system is 13.5 billion USD a year. Another way to look at it is Microsoft’s poor security is the equivalent in cost to one hurricane Katrina every four years. Which is about the same as their release cycle for Windows.
Windows 7 Epic Fail…
Microsoft die Meister der Einschränkungen:
Microsoft plans to offer Netbook makers Windows 7 Starter — a basic operating system with a serious (and artificial) limitation. It only runs up to three applications at once.
Three Reasons Windows 7 Wi…
I suspect most people buying netbooks are quickly reinstalling with Windows XP.
I don’t know about the rest of the world, but Americans still resist the metric system, and they are surely going to be even less inclined to accept something a bit more complicated than that – like Linux!
A year from now, most netbooks will be running Windows 7.
I’m typing this in Firefox running on Windows 7 Beta on a Dell GX150 (PIII 933Mhz) and 512M of RAM. It is okay I guess. I like running XP in Classic mode, and have tried to get this as close to that as possible. I can not seem to get the Classic start menu anymore. Honestly, for me XP does the trick and there really is no reason for me to dump it for this, but at least is operates on this class of hardware. I have been on a double and triple boot setup for sometime and I always return to XP instead of any Linux flavor. Granted I have my XP set up very nice for productivity. There are many little things about Linux on the desktop that just gets in the way of me getting things done. Besides the shell, the rest has some lacking. Once Apple’s type patent expires that might help and also getting some of the graphics stuff into the linux kernel so it doesn’t need to keep doing mode switching then things may get better, but for now there are just annoyances for me. Looks like XP will get security patches and fixes through April 2014, and that is all I really need. BTW, I have not had a virus issue on XP ever except for a stupid thing I did that gave me one and I fixed easy and I usually do not run with anti-spyware protection. These are just thoughts.
@ Ron F.
Actually, I see and read about a lot of people who buy the XP version for various reasons (availability, special offers, etc.), get rid of it and install Linux. On the other hand, people who would have trouble using Linux would have even more trouble installing XP.
Hence, I’m inclined to think that your suspicion is the opposite of the truth.
>The company has done a reasonably good job
>developing Windows 7, according to early beta testers.
You mean, the ones Microsoft bribed with laptops? Don’t accept ‘consensus’ do blindly. You’ll be bamboozled.
Vista too seemed exciting to journalists in 2006 (”Show us your wow!,” remember?)
@Ron F.
Let’s meet back here in one year; it should be interesting.
If I have a virus running in the background does that count as an application?
I’ll stick to Ubuntu
M$ has painted itself into a corner. If they do not sell enough starters or upgrades, they will have to graciously open up the starter edition which will offend those who do pay for an upgrade.
This starter thing is an old scam. I remember a certain large corporation used to sell line printers in two speeds. If you wanted to upgrade to the higher speed, they charged you money, lots of it, and changed the speed of the clock… I do not think it made anyone want to rush out and buy a printer.
If the netbook situation is a victory for M$ it must be very bitter because there are many more GNU/Linux users in the world now because of netbooks and M$ has had to lower its price. What will M$ do when the notebook makers start loading GNU/Linux on notebooks and then PCs and everything under the sun? They will have to cut all their prices so the “you get what you pay for” folks may have to rethink their idea the that other OS is so wonderful people have to pay a lot for it.
I guess this is the last bulwark. M$ is cutting prices as judiciously as it can to maximize and extend income but the gravy train is drying up. The children are realizing the emperor has no clothes.
I’ve heard that the starter version will only be available to OEMs and may even be free so that it can better compete with Linux. It won’t be offered in a box. It’s a lousy idea, but nothing would prevent someone from loading a purchased upgrade version themselves if they want to and by most accounts, it should run reasonably well on most netbooks. In the end, 7 will give netbook users who are adverse to trying Linux, and there are many, an up to date version of Windows to run and allow Microsoft to put XP to rest. It won’t be good enough to convert dyed in the wool Linux users.
ROFLMFAO @ #8
Nice one BobCFC
Ron F: “I suspect most people buying netbooks are quickly reinstalling with Windows XP.”
Out of interest, where would they be getting their copies of XP from? Because the OEM licence prohibits transferring it to another machine.
If people are putting pirated copies of Windows on their netbooks, that’s not going to be good for Microsoft’s already suffering bottom line, is it?
I don’t normally bash Windows. I know, I’m too kind!
)
However, the ‘install’, ‘ease of use’ type of stuff annoys me.
I know few people who use computers who can install an OS – admit it, unless you work in the industry, most people you know are like this.
A friend of my s/father screwed his XP machine (who knows how) and his other ‘computer savvy’ friend reinstalled it for him. This was a laptop using the install discs (so I believe). They got stuck on the wireless card – couldn’t locate the drivers! Then he realised he couldn’t open his old text documents…Office was installed when he bought…bit by bit he realised he was missing various drivers and applications. The conclusion was that he and his friend didn’t know what to do and so rang my s/father.
Windows installed from scratch doesn’t compare to many Linux distros installed from scratch. It’s too obvious to deny.
While this example wasn’t a desktop, given a Windows install CD and a ‘Nix install CD, most people would be up and running and PRODUCING immediately the hand-holding ‘nix install was finished. They’d spend ages FINDING things for their XP install before they could do anything useful with it.
I only wish MS could perfect it’s anti-piracy projects – it would be the end of the Windows desktop dominance as we know it.
@Eric wrote:
“There are many little things about Linux on the desktop that just gets in the way of me getting things done. Besides the shell, the rest has some lacking.”
I could not disagree with you more. My Debian desktop neither gets in my way, ever, nor does it lack in any way.
I’m just sayin’…
machiner
The versatility of GNU/Linux on the desktop is unquestionable. While some favourite apps may be unavailable the universe of software in GNU/Linux keeps improving in variety and quality.
The notebook on which I write this has a LAMP stack with various PHP scripts giving me access by GUI to a dozen very useful databases. I even have a local snapshot of Wikipedia from a few years back, thousands of books indexed by SWISH-e, image databases, and then I get to regular desktop apps and finally BASH stuff. There are layers of utility in GNU/Linux while that other OS has layers of futility.
The use of your PC with GNU/Linux is only limited by your imagination. Go wild.
Robert: You accurately point out that “the use of your PC with GNU/Linux is only limited by your imagination.” But that’s both a blessing and a burden. The vast majority of PC users just want to surf the web, listen to music, check email or use an office suite. All of those functions certainly work on Linux — and boy do they work well. But the average user doesn’t want to go looking for drivers nor do they want to decide between user interfaces, etc.
Sometimes, a standard user interface for all isn’t such a bad thing…
FYI, the STARTER edition is for undeveloped countries, YOU WILL NOT SEE STARTER EDITION in USA or Europe, nor will you find it on Netbooks, so NO THREE APP LIMIT.
Completely false. You shouldn’t publish this until you know the facts.
JohnnyD: You’re welcome to post a comment any time on TheVARguy.com. But please, there’s no need to yell. And by the way, your facts aren’t quite right. In Microsoft’s own official Windows blog the company says the following:
“Windows 7 Starter: Something that our OEM partners asked for is to have an offering for folks that will do very limited things with their PCs and for PCs with limited hardware capabilities. Windows 7 Starter only allows up to 3 applications to run at once. This is something that will be offered only through OEM partners.”
In stark contrast, in the same Microsoft blog entry they say Windows 7 Home Basic is for value PCs in emerging markets.
Feel free to comment more. But please, no need to shout.
Lawrence D’Oliveiro @ #12…
Yes, I expect that most if not all Linux netbooks being overwritten with Windows XP are pirated installs.
14.6 million netbooks sold in 2008 … 90% running Windows XP … ok so 1.5 million sold running Linux. Maybe some of that covers the increase in Linux usage reported by Net Apps and W3C counters over the past year, or maybe some of that is also from Android usage:)
Nevertheless, once M$ begins pushing Windows 7 hard, I expect the percentage of Linux netbook sales to fall to 1%, not too far away from where Linux is sitting percentage-wise on desktop usage today.
Expectations of up to 35 million to be sold in 2009! If Linux manages to hold onto 1% of that – it will be an achievement.
Linux on phones and MID devices stands a better chance – the netbook is too much like a laptop for a paradigm shift in what people expect to see on such machines.
Me … I am writing this on an old Dell D500 running Ubuntu 8.04. I run Linux at home and at work – just try to drag me back to Windows. Nothing would make me happier than to be proven to be a crotchety pessimist.
-Ron
I think the whole microsoft world is awful. I have to say one thing though, I have had many people tell me they don’t know how to work Linux. The one thing about Linux is that you have to know what you are doing to run it. I can work Linux fine but I prefer apple products. All my electronic devices such as phone and mp3 and computer are from apple. I have the iPhone and iPod and mac so I mean I can tell you one thing is that apple can put out microsoft if they wanted to. I have to say I think microsoft is hurting themselves with this one.
Hey John: Let’s not lose sight of the fact that Microsoft freed the world from expensive, proprietary RISC/Unix systems. Everyone used to celebrate how open Unix was. But what about those price tags? Painful.
The VAR Guy was a strong advocate of Windows NT Server when it launched way back when. And there’s still a lot to like about the company (Small Business Server, SQL Server come to mind).
But alas, our resident blogger isn’t a fan of Microsoft’s desktop offerings. That may change with Windows 7’s launch.
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