Netbooks and other small form-factor computing devices are growing in popularity. These low-budget products are looking increasingly relevant in the current economy and are attracting consumers who are looking for better value and mobility. This trend offers a unique chance for the open source Linux platform—which is well-suited for netbooks and doesn't add any licensing costs—to gain some much-needed traction.

Vista is too demanding for netbook hardware, so Microsoft has chosen to extend the lifespan of Windows XP in order to stave off broader Linux use on low-end mobile hardware. This provides a window of opportunity for Linux to get a meaningful foothold in the market—an achievement that has perpetually eluded the free operating system—while Microsoft is prepping Windows 7, which is said to be more netbook-friendly than Vista.

The folks at Microsoft, however, contend that they have already won. In a triumphant blog entry posted earlier this month, Microsoft blogger Brandon LeBlanc asserts that Redmond has dominated the netbook space. Citing the latest NPD retail tracking reports, he says that Windows netbook marketshare has grown to 96 percent. He also suggests that high return rates for Linux netbooks are a sign that consumers overwhelmingly prefer Windows.

"Not only are people overwhelmingly buying Windows, but those that try Linux are often returning it. Both MSI—a leading netbook PC OEM—and Canonical—the vendor supporting the commercial distribution of Ubuntu Linux—stated publicly they saw Linux return rates 4 times higher than Windows," he wrote. "Why such a disparity? Because users simply expect the Windows experience. When they realize their Linux-based netbook PC doesn't deliver that same quality of experience, they get frustrated and take it back."

Although it sounds like Linux is out of the match, Microsoft's message doesn't entirely reflect reality. LeBlanc strategically omitted some relevant contextual information in his recitation of the NPD statistics. Specifically, the NPD study only counts sales from brick-and-mortar retail stores and doesn't include Internet purchases, which make up a very significant chunk of computer sales.

His statements about Canonical, the company behind the popular Ubuntu Linux distribution, are also misleading. It is unclear to me how he can cite Canonical in reference to MSI return rates, as MSI's Linux-based Wind netbooks ship with Novell's SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop (SLED), not with Canonical's Ubuntu Linux distribution.

Chris Kenyon, Canonical's OEM services head, took issue with this error. Kenyon wrote a response in the official Canonical blog. He says that LeBlanc's characterization of Linux as unpopular on netbooks is an "oversimplification" and he criticizes Microsoft for erroneously contending that Canonical has confirmed MSI's return rate statistics.

"Continually repeating that we 'confirmed' a 4x return over XP when we did nothing of the sort is really not worthy of a great company like Microsoft. If we are going to compete, let's do it on real facts and actual statements," he wrote. He says that roughly one third of Dell Mini 9 buyers opted for the Linux-based model instead of the one running Windows XP.

Last year, when we explored the reasons behind the high return rate of the SLED-powered MSI Wind, we talked with Nat Friedman, Novell's chief Linux technology officer, who said that he was not aware of the actual return rate. We discovered that much of the consumer dissatisfaction with the MSI netbooks was caused by configuration errors that are attributable to MSI.

The laptop maker shipped the machines without proper configuration for hardware features like the webcam and WiFi. Friedman suggested that technical problems of this nature are inevitable in what is arguably the first large-scale Linux rollout. Indeed, technical problems of this nature are not entirely isolated to MSI. I ran into a few problems—though nothing quite of that magnitude—with my Linux-based Dell Mini 9.

It seems that one major impediment for Linux adoption in the netbook market is that the OEMs haven't entirely figured out the platform yet. Linux on consumer-oriented devices is still relatively new to them, whereas they have seven years of experience dealing with Windows XP configuration challenges. This does give Microsoft an edge in the netbook market, albeit not quite one of the extent that LeBlanc wants people to believe. It's too early to count Linux out, but the platform will clearly face tough challenges if it continues to edge towards mainstream acceptance.

Major players like Intel are making large investments in order to boost Linux's viability on netbook devices. Intel's next-generation, Linux-based Moblin platform, for example, is designed to provide top-notch performance and hardware compatibility on Atom-based netbooks. A large number of Linux distributors are adopting Moblin and intend to use it as the basis of their netbook distros.

Initiatives like the Moblin project, which will make it easier for hardware vendors to deploy Linux on netbook devices, can help ensure that the open source operating system remains competitive in the netbook market.

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