Fed up with its marginalized role in the netbook market, Microsoft is now trying to reshape how netbooks are perceived in the IT industry.
This week at the Computex 2009 conference in Taiwan, Microsoft said it believes the term "netbook" should be abandoned in favor of "low-cost small notebook PC" in order to better reflect the fact that today's netbooks include broad functionality that goes beyond Web browsing.
This certainly suggests that Microsoft is trying to put the toothpaste back into the tube. Microsoft is losing money on netbooks, and segmenting the market could enable the company to charge more for Windows 7 on a higher class of netbook.
Netbooks' popularity has been gnawing away at Windows client revenue, and Microsoft reportedly makes as little as $15 per netbook with Windows XP Home, compared to between $50 and $60 for PCs running Windows Vista.
Microsoft enjoys a commanding share of the netbook operating system market and often points to high Linux netbook return rates as evidence that customers prefer Windows. Still, Microsoft has to be concerned by the looming threat of Google's Linux-based Android OS, which is attracting more attention from PC makers. Perhaps that's why Microsoft has enlisted a foot soldier -- Asus, maker of the Eee PC -- to help it highlight the superiority of Windows over Linux.
Microsoft helped Asus to develop, "It's Better With Windows," a Web site that showcases the advantages of Windows with loaded messages like: "Windows helps you quickly and easily get online and connect to your devices and services -- without dealing with an unfamiliar environment or major compatibility issues." Microsoft said it will assist other OEMs to develop similar Web sites, but for now, Asus is the only netbook maker parroting Microsoft's netbook messages.
At Computex, Asus executives showed off an Eee PC running Android, but a day later told Computerworld that the project was "not mature" and, therefore, wouldn't be shown at Asus' booth, a move very possibly made in deference to the Microsoft executives in attendance.
Microsoft is accustomed to dictating terms in the IT industry, but netbooks are changing that. Microsoft's apparent desire to reset the netbook trend suggests it's fully aware of what Linux could become on netbooks, and wants to do everything in its power to stall it.
