"It also works with the largest set of printers, digital cameras and other devices. Linux doesn’t come close to doing any of these things"

That is an out and out lie. Linux is compatible with so much more hardware than Windows. It is also more stable and better in every way you can measure an OS. The only reason people return linux netbooks i because they are unable to get out from under their shell. They expect Windows because that is all they know. If they opened their eyes for a second they would discover the true capabilities and compatibility that linux offers. "Windows to the rescue" Is that a joke?

Windows is leading because YOU CANNOT FIND LINUX BASED NETBOOKS! I recently purchased Aspire One and the only place I could get Linux based was to order online.

This seems to skew the data, IMHO.

“To share some numbers: since February 2008, Windows OS share has gone from 10 percent to over 80 percent on these machines"

Microsoft used to have almost 100% of the PC market share. and they could put the price they wanted on the software, because there was no competition.

Now, Microsoft is celebrating 80% market share in the fastest growing segment, but they can't sell XP for more than $30, because manufacturers are trying to keep the prices low.

20% is a huge victory for Linux and Open Souce Software, and this year we can expect more, with Intel's Moblin, HP's MIE, and Google's Android.

I dont think that Linux was a failure. I'd rather think that Linux had a good market penetration on the netbook side. A lot of people kept their Linux Netbooks. Of course the returns rates were high due to confusing marketing, but in the end I think Linux is gaining at least a niche market.

could this possibly be a marketing peice by MS ?
as far as i can tell windows 7 is a lighter version of vista, by lighter im talking the os only uses half the resources that vista needs - on my machine thats a whopping 1.2gig of ram and around 30% of my processor at idle.........personally i bought a new desktop for a power and productivity increase, as well as saving space.

if this were a car it would be red lining at 30mph - not good! so i installed windows 7 ultimate beta - ok this is a performance increase and freed up around 600mghz of ram so i salvaged a whole pc's worth of resources just by by changing the OS...

so now i use ubuntu intrepid with 3D effects(compiz) and it currently sits within 300-400mghz of ram and 1-2% processor at idle i have not maxed the processor out fully i have not hit a limitation on the RAM either

i have also read that win7 netbook edition will have a cap on the max applications (to 3 so, thats firewall, anti virus, and malware protection ) i think you will be profoundly taken back by the power of linux - it is completely customizable there's an army of dedicated community engineers striving as you read to make the netbook editions of linux get the best out of the hardware not to mention stability.

Hmmm... A supposed "technology news editor" repeats a Microsoft marketing manager's spiel with no real analysis or examination and we are supposed to take it seriously?

Microsoft is all about selling as much as possible no matter the user experience they need to sacrifice. I'll be sure to laugh when this gets them one day.
But, they're partly right. Most users who've returned their linux netbooks expected a Winblows experience. So, when they saw they need to open synaptic to install software, which is oh so painful, they freaked out and ran as far as possible. I'm suuure surfing the net for software, downloading, double clicking and installing totally beats getting whatever you need in a few clicks and most importantly, safely.
Oh, and WoW sometimes works better with Wine than it does on Windoze.

Wow, MS is disappointed with Linux on netbooks. Wonder if the community ever will make a distrobution that will make MS pleased.

Where I live (in Scandinavia), I've had a hard time finding Linux on these netbooks. There has been some complaining about driver issues on some netbooks. Some of these custom distros, like Linpus, has an easy interface, but if new users want to install media codecs etc. it can be hard work.

Hope things will be different now, both HW and DELL has chosen Ubuntu (that has gotten a lot you positive feedback for being easy and user friendly) for their main Linux distro. HP has made a pretty unique interface with easy access to the Add/Remove software. DELL has made an easily configurable interface, with the possibility to change between theirs and standard Ubuntu with a couple of clicks.


So of MS has tried all the Linux variants that comes shipped on these notebook, and still ain't pleased, maybe they should try one of these :)

My digital camera came with a CD for windows, so I could use it on that OS. However, t worked fine in Ubuntu without any need for a CD at all.

Why users prefer windows? because they dont know anything else than that and dont want to learn to use linux. I am not surprised of the netbook stuff, when windows users dont even want to try firefox?
Anyway, I am happy using Linux, and I am so glad that I belong to that minority. Remember: Only a tiny fraction of the humankind will go to Paradise, the rest will burn in hell, the Bible clearly says it.

Vista does run on netbooks, I have tried. It "works," just like Windows 7 will "work." Notice the quotes. Just because something works doesn't mean it will work well, you would have to be quite silly to think that. Windows 7 won't replace Linux on netbooks because of the same basic problems Vista did.
1.) Bad drivers
2.) Broken software (it is sad when WINE runs more software than the OS it emulates)
3.) COST $$$ M$ will not give Windows 7 away like XP, it will be far, far more expensive. M$ will need to recoop loses from Vista and development costs for Windows 7 itself.
4.) Slow, Windows 7 "works"