05.11.10
Opinions: What Microsoft Does to Netbooks™ and Smartbooks™
Summary: Two new messages from USENET, regarding “Netbooks” and Smartbooks”
Has Microsoft finally managed Netbook extermination in the USA ?
From: Terry Porter
Date: Sunday 09 May 2010 09:34:58
Groups: comp.os.linux.advocacyAccording to this graph (see below), YoY (Year over Year) sales of the Netbook in the USA have slumped from 641% in Jul2009 to 25% in Mar2010 and 5% in Apr2010.
We all know that tens of millions of Linux netbooks were sold before Microsoft strongarmed the netbook manufacturers into providing only Windows7 on Netbooks whose hardware specs were also dictated by Microsoft to be much reduced compared to a Laptop. i.e. ram was limited.
Retailers were ‘persuaded’ not to offer Linux Netbooks where Windows Netbooks were on display, or to make sure the Linux Netbooks were powered off, or not just available.
This graph, http://mashable.com/2010/05/06/ipad-netbook-market/ shows the sales data I have quoted above, although it attempts to suggest that the Apple Ipad is the reason for the Netbook slump.
As the Apple Ipad was not released into the American market until April 2010, the Ipad may be responsible for some of the April slump, but it can’t be responsible for the prior decline.
I think the likely suspect for the decline is Microsoft, Windows7, a maximum of three concurrent apps, and pricing that in some cases, rivals larger dual core laptops.
Who needs to innovate, … when you can exterminate ?
Guess we can’t call them SmartBooks – new term needed!
From: Rex Ballard
Date: Monday 10 May 2010 11:46:39
Groups: comp.os.linux.advocacyA few months ago, Lenovo, fed up with having the Linux powered NetBook hijacked by Microsoft announced a new device powered by the ARM chipset so that it could ONLY run Linux. They called this new device a SmartBook.
It seems that the SmartBook term was another trademark and now Microsoft has hijacked that trademark too.
http://www.smartbook.info/?gclid=CKuPvJeux6ECFV195Qod9hR-_A
http://www.smartbook.de/Content/Startseite.aspx
http://www.smartbook.de/Content/produktseiten/default.aspx?kategorie=business
http://www.smartbook.de/Content/produktseiten/default.aspx?kategorie=lifestyle
So what should we call a Linux powered ARM based book – and this time could the Linux Foundation Trademark the term and enforce the trademark as well as the Linux trademark as aggressively as Microsoft does?
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your_friend said,
May 11, 2010 at 6:36 pm
No one wants to pay three or four hundred dollars for a netbook but this is all that’s on shelves thanks to Microsoft. We’ve seen the email from Microsoft’s previous attacks on retailers who dared to sell GNU/Linux, the EEE PC and the One Laptop per Child project. We’ve also seen leaked “agreements” between Microsoft and hardware makers such as Asus. Now, you can visit any retailer to see a truly depressing line up of heavy, expensive junk with Vista 7 that customers completely ignore. Retailers who think expensive netbooks, Vista 7 or iPad will save them are deluded. In the middle of this recession, customers are looking for cheap computers to get a little text editing for work or school done – iPad and $400 laptops ain’t it. They wanted the $200 keyboarded device the EEE PC delivered back in 2007. The death of this high growth and profitable market will nail retailers, hardware makers and Microsoft too.
People are not going back to the big ugly boxes that the Microsoft ecosystem requires. They are going to route around Microsoft’s manipulation or sit on their hands. Vista and Vista 7 DRM harms performance and compatibility to the point that no one will buy it. Even as a virtual PC host, it’s as buggy as a dead goat. Businesses will continue to stay away. Vista has taught them that upgrades to buggier Windows is not inevitable. Surviving hardware makers will be forced by market demand to provide software that does not have Vista’s restrictions baked into it.