Ballmer Still No Fan of Netbooks, Apparently

It turns out that Windows 7 Starter Edition, the version of the new operating system aimed at netbooks, will be pretty lame after all. And that it will be for OEMs only. And that it will be more expensive than XP, meaning Microsoft will be damaging one of the main value points of buying a netbook (the price). And that Steve Ballmer just doesn't like netbooks that much in general. Dig his quote from the story linked above:

"Our license tells you what a netbook is. Our license says it's got to have a super-small screen, which means it probably has a super-small keyboard, and it has to have a certain processor and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah."

You know what, Steve? XP runs just fine on the netbook your editor is using to type this post right now -- and it probably will for a while. And if at some point it doesn't, that free Linux thing might be kind of tempting after all. Don't mess with the netbook crowd.

Posted by Lee Pender on August 12, 2009 at 11:55 AM