Microsoft: 96% of netbooks run Windows

 

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By Barry Collins

Posted on 7 Apr 2009 at 09:27

Microsoft claims to have totally destroyed Linux's grip on the netbook market.

The software giant claims fewer than 10% of netbooks sold in the first half of 2008 shipped with Windows, as Linux took an early stranglehold on the market.

But, Microsoft is now claiming a total reversal, with the latest figures from retail analysts NPD showing that 96% of netbooks sold in February 2009 were running Microsoft's OS.

The company claims the turnaround has been prompted by enormous customer dissatisfaction with Linux. "Not only are people overwhelmingly buying Windows, but those that try Linux are often returning it," Microsoft's Brandon LeBlanc claims in a post on the Official Windows Blog.

"Both MSI - a leading netbook PC OEM - and Canonical - the vendor supporting the commercial distribution of Ubuntu Linux - stated publicly they saw Linux return rates four times higher than Windows.

"Why such a disparity? Because users simply expect the Windows experience. When they realise their Linux-based netbook PC doesn't deliver that same quality of experience, they get frustrated and take it back."

LeBlanc cites figures from the Carphone Warehouse, which claimed that Linux netbook return rates were as high as one-in-five. Those figures may even be on the conservative side. A Samsung spokesman recently told PC Pro that Linux netbook return rates were a staggering 40% at some retailers.

Microsoft is, of course, painfully aware that the vast majority of Windows netbooks are running on XP instead of the vastly more demanding Vista. However, it claims Windows 7 will become the netbook operating system of choice.

"We can confidently say that no matter how netbook PC hardware evolves, we're gearing up to ensure that Windows 7 will run great on them," LeBlanc states.

"As we mentioned at PDC [Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference], we've been testing Windows 7 on netbook PCs since before Windows 7 was feature complete, and our plan is to enable these small notebook PCs to run any edition of Windows 7."

Microsoft is deliberately targeting Windows 7 Starter edition at the netbook market, although the company is applying an arbitrary limit of three concurrent applications on the low-budget OS.