Manufacturers are taking advantage of the Windows 7 release to roll out a slate of new laptops, and the big trend is low prices. We wrote a couple of weeks ago about Netbook watchers predicting that Windows 7 will be licensed too high for value-priced netbooks. But licensing fees don't seem to be preventing laptop makers from aggressive pricing on their new laptops, even ones with premium features and finishes.
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Member since:2006-06-21
This article is about laptops. The issue will be even more dire with netbooks. Because laptops (even these cheap ones) will be priced in the $400+ range. But netbooks are in the $200-$300 range. When you go looking for a $200 netbook, even $20 extra starts to become apparent. In other words, it will become increasingly difficult for Microsoft to hide the "Microsoft tax" in the price of the hardware.
How low are they willing to go just so they don't lose the marketshare? As past experiences have shown us, they'll go to negative figures and lose money if they have to.
And that's disregarding ARM processors. I honestly don't know how they're going to deal with that. It's not even a question of porting Windows to ARM, even if they did it's useless, it's the applications that would have to be ported too. Virtualization is probably out of the question with such low-power hardware.
Member since:
2006-01-14
Didnt Ballmer come out and say that things were going to get more expensive, not less. They had been shooting for the low end too much? I guess you take what you can get...