7 ms·
Netbooks were originally intended to ship with Linux pre-installed, but to microsoft that meant letting consumers have an actual, real choice, and ballmer would
by Toshio 14y ago
Netbooks were originally intended to ship with Linux pre-installed, but to microsoft that meant letting consumers have an actual, real choice, and ballmer wouldn't have any of it (am I the only one who remembers a ms-asus join-venture site about netbooks called itsbetterwithwindows.com?) Anyway, netbooks stopped shipping with Linux preinstalled, which caused them to quickly nosedive into irrelevance.
TL;DR microsoft should have left the netbook market alone. They didn't. Fast-forward a few years, and it's biting them in the ass.
Justice exists.
- schraeds 14y agoA nice narrative you've painted there but I think tablets, and the crumby experience netbooks offered (low resolution screens, cramped keyboards, mediocre performance) were the real killers of netbooks as a fad.
- lake_rogue 14y agoHow does this hurt Microsoft? If everyone is tossing their netbook every 6 months, doesn't Microsoft get them to pay the Windows licensing fee more frequently?
- wazoox 14y agoOf course I can't draw definitive conclusion from a couple of cases, but the 3 linux netbooks I've bought in 2007/2008 are still in use. And AFAIK my mother's 2008 aspire one only recently failed afer 4 years of heavy use.
- freehunter 14y agoMy mom bought one for my sister this summer before her first year at university. An EeePC 10" something or other. I'm still using my 3-year-old Lenovo netbook as an Arduino programming machine because it's so portable and runs Linux.
- dasil003 14y agoI get the poetic justice part, but explain how netbooks shipping with Linux would have kept them relevant?
- Toshio 14y agoLinux would have kept netbooks relevant by keeping them usable. It turned out netbooks are powerful enough to run a browser, an IM app and a few widgets, but as soon as you throw AV software on top of that, they screech to a halt.
- raverbashing 14y agoYes, but Shipped versions of Linux were simply AWFUL Even Ubuntu "netbook edition" was terrible! It needed a good video card to run (and compatible drivers, etc) meaning it was a crapshoot. What MS could have done is kept licensing Windows XP for them, which was good instead of "Vista" and then 7 So yes, if I get a netbook I'm customizing my linux installation, because default ones are bad.
- justincormack 14y agoUbuntu netbook was pretty decent compared to the shit that came with them.
- yuhong 14y agoThey did keep licensing XP for them.
- jbellis 14y agoNote: the Google Chromebook (a netbook by any reasonable definition) is Amazon's top-selling laptop. http://news.yahoo.com/netbooks-crash-burn-amazon-best-selling-laptop-chromebook-221746315.html http://news.yahoo.com/netbooks-crash-burn-amazon-best-sellin...