Good move which will help Microsoft increase their already record profits. The company that makes the EEE PC is excited as well since they’ve already announced the new Windows version is expected to easily outsell their current Linux model. Guess you missed those articles somehow.
I didn't miss anything, GE. And I didn't write anything at all about how well the Eee-PC/XP might sell against the Eee-PC/Linux. You're getting those visuals again, I guess; better check your meds.
If I HAD commented on the relative potential sales, I'd have speculated that the XP version would indeed outsell the Linux version, if the performance and features were suitable for the market for such small machines.
So what?
The point of the article, which --you-- apparently missed, is that Microsoft is being forced, by a combination of the marketplace and their own mistakes in Vista, to not only prolong the life of the major competition to Vista (namely, XP), but to release versions of it for machines they never anticipated addressing before.
My hat is off to them if they succeed. Good for 'em.
But either they didn't foresee this extra longevity of XP, or they lied for years about it, in an effort to hump Vista (unsuccessfully, obviously).
You know as well as I do that out in Redmond, there are a lot of Vista-humpers who are fit to be tied about the fact their shiny new albatross is being put tight into a corner by a 7-yr-old operating system.
So I don't care one whit if they outsell Linux on the Eee-PC. I'm only saying, "Geez guys, if you're so rich, why ain't you smart?"
You are welcome to retort, "If you're so smart why ain't you rich?", but that's a different thread... ;-)