Microsoft cripples netbooks?
Monopolies are rarely good for the consumer and the Microsoft Windows hegemony is no exception. An example of Microsoft acting counter to the best interests of PC users is the company’s efforts to cripple netbooks so that consumers are forced to buy bigger machines with more expensive Windows. Nor are the OEMs and Intel averse to the idea of selling bigger, more expensive systems. At PC World, Shane O’Neill asks, “Does Microsoft Want You to Hate Netbooks?” He reports on some observations by Roger Kay, president of research firm Endpoint Technologies:
“If Microsoft could kill the netbook market it would, but they’re stuck with it,” says Kay.
He adds that Microsoft and its OEM partners are using Windows 7 Starter to de-feature the OS on netbooks and make it difficult for users to get all they want.
“They want users to think ‘I need more than this.’ It’s a way to upsell to higher-priced laptops,” says Kay.
He goes on to note:
“OEMs have to keep netbook prices down, so they demanded the lowest Windows SKU at the lowest price. Microsoft had to give it to them.”
But analyst Kay believes Microsoft is more complicit in the handicapping of the Windows 7 netbook experience.
“Microsoft has all but admitted that it despises netbooks, but it can’t back off from them because that would leave an opening for Google’s Chrome OS,” he says.
In other words, without the threatened competition from Chrome, consumers might very well not have the netbook option. Just as without Firefox, we’d have all been stuck with a fusty and unsafe version of Internet Explorer 6 for who knows how long.
PC World blogger David Coursey writes:
Chrome OS may lead to higher-performance netbooks, but many of them will not be running Google’s next-generation operating system.
Why? Because Chrome OS could force Microsoft to stop crippling netbooks to avoid competition with more expensive notebooks.
Blame Microsoft for all those 10.1-inch screens, underpowered Atom processors, skimpy 1GB of memory, 160GB hard drives, and the not-very-good user experience on netbooks running Windows XP.
On newer netbooks, blame Redmond for Windows 7 Starter Edition. It will neither play a DVD nor join a domain. Starter Edition users also cannot customize their desktops, which lack the Aero look-and-feel. And the crippling 1GB memory limit remains.
Even if the Chrome OS never amounts to much, we may all benefit because it will make Microsoft do better things for the consumer. Isn’t competition grand?
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