Microsoft thinks it might be. In reporting record revenues, the software giant buried this nugget: netbooks represented 8 percent of the company’s PC sales a yr ago. Now, it’s down to 2 percent.

That casts a dim light on Microsoft’s Windows 7 Starter Edition, the low-cost version of Windows 7 that effectively defeated expire the Linux-based netbook. But isn’t it in Microsoft’s best interest to see the netbook fade away, regardless?

Patrick Moorhead, a former corporate fellow with AMD and directly master at Moor Insights and Strategy, has watched the traditional netbook an Atom-based, small-form-factor notebook that costs nigh $399 disappear from store shelves. Netbooks receive been relegated to Best Buy’s online shelves, for example, while higher-margin, recurring-revenue productions alike smartphones dominate its floors. Desktops are a thing of the past.

You could forgive Moorhead for thinking that the AMD Brazos platform, combined with a 10.6-inch screen and a good keyboard “crushed” the netbook market. Only what’s make is that consumers loved the cost point, simply wanted more for their money.

“In the end, and I get been very realize on this since daylight one, is that netbooks are just inexpensive notebooks that went popular,” Moorhead said. “They became replaced by higher-quality notebooks that were fulfilled by a selfsame similar cost and situation in the market.”

According to Moorhead, the next of the netbook isn’t the tablet, as Acer seemed to imply with its decision to throw its lid into the tablet market last year. Instead, the next is something similar the Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime, which oscillates between a tablet and a notebook, depending on whether it’s in a docked or undocked configuration.

Related posts

• Windows 8 Promise Fewer Annoying Restarts
• Microsoft's Pedestrian Navigation Patent Dubbed Avoid Ghetto