Windows 7 Makes Netbooks Fly

If you want to see how much progress Microsoft has made with Windows 7, try it on a Netbook. I have been testing an ASUS Eee netbook with Windows 7 Beta 1 for the last couple of weeks. The netbook sports an Intel Atom processor and only 1 GB of RAM.

We have seen the netbook PC category explode over the last two years and Microsoft was forced to make a key decision. Give up market share to Linux or lower the price of Windows. With the average price of a netbook selling for around $400 Microsoft made a smart business decision and sold Windows XP at a discount. Microsoft now has over 80% of the netbook running Windows. But Windows Vista would never be a credible alternative on netbooks. It required too much hardware to run optimally and Microsoft was worried about cannibalization.

 In comes Windows 7, when I first booted Windows 7 the first time I could tell something was different. It was snappier and more responsive. Applications loaded fast and even with the minimum hardware requirements the Windows Aero interface was enabled and performed like my desktop running Vista. After using it for a while I can only describe it with one word, solid. There are not any flashy features but several enhancements that you quickly become accustom to. Microsoft has clearly taken a different approach with the design of Windows 7 and it shows running on netbooks. Windows 7 is by far the best Windows beta I have ever seen come out of Redmond. It looks like Microsoft is starting to get its mojo back.

Windows 7 Beta in January

People in the Windows blogosphere were buzzing Tuesday because of a blog post by Keith Combs on the Microsoft Technet site. He was alluding to the Windows 7 Beta 1 DVDs being given out at an up and coming developer event.

Ina Fried, from CNET reported that Keith said, “We are targeting to have the DVDs in the materials from 1/13/2009 on.” This would be some evidence that Steven Sinofsky has whipped the Windows devlopment organization into shape and is really making the trains run on time for a change. From what I saw from Microsoft’s PDC Windows 7 looks to be a promising successor to the tragedy of Windows Vista.