Is Microsoft Sliding Into Consumer Irrelevance?
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@Carnival-Boy said:
I'm not aware there is a name for these new breed of low-cost, low spec laptops. Regardless, the $200 HP Stream, running Windows 8.1 with Bing, is currently the best seller on Amazon. This shows that when Windows goes toe-to-toe with ChromeOS on pretty much identical hardware, at an identical price, consumers are still preferring Windows (just). So reports of Microsoft's death have been greatly exaggerated.
They are called netbooks.
Windows might have gotten back (where do you have the Amazon report on that, is there a best seller link that they keep for current sales?) but it is coming from a position of massive loss of ground. Windows OS is a fraction today of where it was just five years ago. They lost the position of leadership. The Stream is also very, very new. It will take a few months to see if it is just a quick flash in the pan or if it remains a steady seller.
We bought the netbook that it replaces for about $130 and it was, nearly, worthless. Chromebooks for $200 are very nice. Windows netbooks, not so much. Having tried both of the same generation, there is quite a usability gap. But that might not stop people from returning to Windows, but Microsoft is trying a new experiment in making their OS free. It is a brand new experiment and has some serious proving of itself to do.
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I'm not sure there's ever been an official definition, but I always thought they were small (less than 10 inches). But you don't hear Apple or HP ever calling their current products netbooks. At the very least, the term has gone out of fashion.
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OK the light is starting to show through this discussion.
I don't look at an 11" laptop and think netbook, no matter what hardware is in it - maybe my definition is old/wrong - but that's just me. So a Chromebook has never been a netbook to me.
But if the industry is considering Chromebooks to be netbooks, OK I can see that perhaps they are the top sellers.
Additionally - I'll admit I was only thinking about linux machine sales in the context of first world countries. Linux has made little to real inroads there, we are still dominated by Windows and Mac. I know of none of my friends who use a chromebook, and only a small handful who use Linux, and another small handful who use Macbooks.
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From what I remember of my readings of a few years ago, the netbook itself is a "Standard" coined by Intel which is esentially underpowered (cap of 2GB RAM and a maximum of 10" screen size). I can't find a link to the actual standard, so don't take this as 100% accurate.
