Ballmer Knocks Netbooks At Windows 7 Launch
- 5 Comment
At today’s launch of Window’s 7, Steve Ballmer was in a good mood. After all, Microsoft’s new OS is expected be a powerful rival to the Mac OS in not only power but usability.
He revealed a number of new computers from Microsoft partners at the event, all running Windows 7, but somebody failed to make it to the party: the netbook.
Ballmer is a notorious netbook hater. For all I can tell, this has to do with the fact that netbooks killed price margins for Microsoft when users elected for Windows XP over the bloated Windows Vista, which won’t run on most machines. Even Michael Dell has been dropping snide remarks about the machines, and Apple has not even deigned to make one.
While Microsoft is only allowing netbook manufacturers to sell their machines with the crippled Windows 7 Starter, despite the fact that the machines run the full OS without isses. If you want to upgrade to Home Premium, however, you’ll need to drop another $80 bucks.
All in all, netbooks continue to be a lasting thorn in the side of big shots even as they boost PC sales and consumer satisfaction. Ce’est la vie, Ballmer!
Via GapperBlog.
5 Comments on this post
Trackbacks
-
MleB said:
Let’s face it, Balmer – if it wasn’t for netbooks and their use of XP over the last two years, Microsoft’s OS market share would have been practically non-existent. Better get off your high horse and show a little love for the technology that kept your ass in the CEO position.
And that starts with the upgrade path to Win7 from XP. The complexity of a clean install, the lack of a retail USB drive install (like Kapersky has for its Security program) and sheer cost of the full Win7 means I won’t be installing the OS on this machine anytime soon. And I can hardly uimagine I’m the only one.
Only time will tell if Win7 is the saviour Microsoft (and users) hope for, but it serves no one to badmouth a device that has proven to be so popular.
October 23rd, 2009 at 7:21 am
[...] here, you might want to subscribe to the RSS feed for updates on this topic.Powered by WP Greet BoxWindows 7 is finally being released today – exciting, isn’t it? What better way to celebrate the [...]
[...] freebies are getting better, it seems. Steve Ballmer recently gave out copies of Windows 7 at the 7 release party. He’s notoriously anti-netbook, so [...]
[...] Windows 7 may rock a sleeker interface and more features than its predecessors ever did, and it may have been [...]
[...] he can be pretty amusing. He certainly does not fit the stereotype of the staid, laid-back CEO. Ballmer is quite the opposite, always very enthusiastic. I first found out about him when I saw a YouTube [...]