Why are Netbooks so important to Microsoft

By Kris at 3:15 PM

If you buy a netbook today, you’ll most likely be running Windows XP or a Linux variant by default, due in no small part to Vista’s high power and system resource consumption. That is potentially one of the reasons why Vista sales aren’t as high as expected, because the netbook concept didn’t see it’s first real releases until approximately a year after Windows Vista was released. Microsoft apparently gambled on the concept that desktops and laptops were going to continue to a strict increase in power over time, but instead netbooks with lower resources and cost came into the picture and have started to rise in popularity.A netbook is a small to medium sized, light-weight, low-cost, energy-efficient laptop. Because of their recent rise to popularity, it was highly speculated that when Apple was releasing their new notebooks in 2008 that they would include a netbook in the lineup. Instead of the expected and hoped for Apple netbook, the company simply released a revamped series of its regular notebooks, the cheapest of which still running at $800. Jobs did indicate that Apple will be keeping an eye on how the netbook market evolves, and that we might see a netbook from Apple in 2010. Microsoft on the other hand seems to have regarded its Vista strategy as a mistake, and the software giant has already decided to attempt to make Windows 7 run on almost any low end computer. This will be a huge benefit to Microsoft when the new OS is released since currently about 30% of netbooks are running Linux, and it may allow them to gain back some ground as well as take a good lead against Apple.