Canonical vs. Microsoft: Netbook Cat Fight
The VAR Guy loves cat fights as much as the next guy. Jennifer Aniston vs. Angelina Jolie? Classic but a bit dated. Canonical vs. Microsoft? Not quite as sexy, but certainly timely and just as much fun. The latest spat involves Canonical dismissing Microsoft’s claims in the netbook market.
The clawing started when Microsoft blogger Brandon LeBlanc declared victory in the netbook market, noting third-party research that said Windows has 96 percent market share in the netbook industry. Meow.
Canonical wasn’t going to sit on its paws. The Ubuntu proponent fired back with a blog (written by Chris Kenyon) titled Microsoft, FUD and the netbook market. For those who are new to the IT industry, FUD is a classic term that stands for Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. In other words, Canonical thinks Microsoft is spreading misinformation in the netbook market in order to ensure victory for Windows.
The Real Story
Frankly, The VAR Guy thinks the netbook market has a larger problem than the Windows vs. Linux debate. Regardless of which operating system you choose, some netbooks come with cheap keyboards, lousy batteries and other money saving items that deliver less-than-stellar user experiences.
No doubt, the forthcoming Ubuntu 9.04 and Windows 7 launches will trigger the next battle in the netbook war. Let’s hope hardware improvements keep pace with operating system improvements.
Contributing blogger The VAR Guy covers what’s next in the IT channel. WorksWithU is updated multiple times per week. Don’t miss a single post. Sign up for our RSS and Twitter feeds (available now) and newsletter (coming in 2009).
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Well Microsoft are in trouble in the European courts again. Germany has declaired the way Microsoft fixes the price of Office Home and Student to be anticompetitive and therefore illegal. I guess the Germans don’t like “marketing dollars”.
If that wasn’t bad enough Brussels has ruled in a summery judgement that bundling Internet Explorer with Windows may also be anticompetitive. Which is obviously going to make building a Microsoft only netbook very difficult if the final judgement also goes against Microsoft.
Now if I’m building a cheap laptop designed solely to surf the web and I’m not bundling IE. Why would I continue to stick with Windows? Without IE, Windows on the netbook form factor becomes irrelevant.