Microsoft asserts that about 96 percent of mininotebooks, or netbooks, currently on the market run some version of Windows, rather than Linux. Dell, Hewlett-Packard and other makers have been focusing on feeding increased public demand for netbooks, as more people seem to be purchasing them in search of cheap computing power in the midst of a global recession.
Microsoft
claims that Windows runs on 96 percent of the mininotebooks known as netbooks
that currently constitute one of the fastest-growing segments of the IT hardware
industry.
Hardware companies such as Dell, Hewlett-Packard and Asustek Computer have
all plunged into manufacturing netbooks, which are compact units that trade
weight and computing power for connectivity and portability, and whose adoption
on the enterprise side could eventually be driven by an
increasingly
mobile work force demanding an array of connected devices while on the road.
"Initially, some in the industry viewed low-cost netbook PCs as a new
challenge for Microsoft and an opportunity for Linux to make inroads in the
consumer market," Brandon LeBlanc, a Windows communications manager, wrote
on the
Windows Experience Blog. "In fact, the exact opposite turned out to
be true-a number of analysts and researchers following the space see ample
evidence indicating customers really do want netbook PCs to work like their
larger brethren-and that the way the vast majority of consumers make that
happen is by buying a netbook PC with Windows."
According to LeBlanc, who in turn quotes data from research company NPD
Group's Retail Tracking Service, the Windows-equipped netbook market-where
netbooks are defined as systems with a 10.2-inch or smaller screen and which
retail for under $500-jumped from below 10 percent in the first half of 2008 to
96 percent in February 2009.
Overall, the NPD Group said, laptop sales growth in 2008 was 21 percent with
netbooks and 16 percent without them. In December 2008, netbooks accounted for about
12 percent of the total volume of laptops sold in the United
States.
Despite earlier fears among hardware manufacturers that
netbooks
would cannibalize the market for more expensive PCs, such fears seem to be
overblown, according to a number of analysts and industry leaders.
LeBlanc went on to cite one British retailer as saying the customer return
rate for Linux-installed netbooks was 20 percent higher than for
Windows-equipped netbooks.
"[Windows is] easier to use, just works out of the box with people's
stuff and ultimately offers more choice," he said, by way of explaining
this data.
Netbook adopters may be coming to
Windows-equipped
notebooks out of familiarity.
"Consumers want to buy something that's comfortable," Steve Baker,
an NPD Group analyst, said in an interview. "They want to buy something
they know. Products without that are confusing; they're more intimidating than
what people want."
Microsoft has been testing Windows 7, the newest
version of its operating system due later in 2009, for use on netbooks.
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