Lenovo Says Linux Won't Dominate Netbook Market

Filed in archive OS on May 12, 2009

In a recent interview with TECH.BLORGE's John Pospisil, Lenovo's Matt Kohut suggested that Linux is unlikely to dominate Windows in the netbook market.

"You know, there were a lot of netbooks loaded with Linux, which saves $50 or $100 or whatever it happens to be, based on Microsoft's pricing and, again, from an industry standpoint, there were a lot of returns because people didn't know what to do with it," Kohut said. "Linux, even if you've got a great distribution, and you can argue which one is better or not, still requires a lot more hands-on than somebody who is using Windows. So we've seen overwhelmingly people wanting to stay with Windows, because it just makes more sense: you just take it out of the box and it's ready to go."

"That's exactly what I've been saying for a while," writes Computerworld's Preston Gralla. "Although Linux is generally easy to use these days, upgrading and installing software on it is no easy task. Linux's only future on netbooks is as a niche, and what Lenovo says is one more piece of evidence."

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