Microsoft XP in less than $15

Well, well, don’t jump over! While the news is still reported to be a leak, it also has some ifs and buts!

The exact news (leak) is that Microsoft has dropped the price of Windows XP for Netbooks to under $15 per license, which is almost one third of the price of a Windows Vista license that Microsoft typically charges the manufacturers of normal laptop makers when they bundle it with their products.

What is Netbook?

As you may already know, Netbooks are the small portable laptops, designed mostly for accessing only the Internet and remote web-based applications. If you wish to read more about Netbooks, then I will suggest you to visit this page on our all time favorite resource center wikipedia, but only after you read this post completely.

Some Trends

• Netbooks worldwide are picking up fast from mere 1% market share of the total laptop market in July to an alarming 19% month-on-month market share of laptops in December 2008. [Source: Pricegrabber report]
• According to an estimate, almost thirty times more netbooks were sold in 2008 than in 2007 (400,000). [Source: eetimes]
• For 2009, it is estimated that netbook sales will grow 189% to 21.5 million. [Source: eetimes]

All in all, netbook market seems to be the next big fish in this era of economic slowdown, no wonder all the biggies are pulling up their socks to get the big pie.

Here is a quick summary of what is happening in the market:

• ASUS has allocated engineers to develop netbook based on Google’s Android platform.[Source: Bloomberg]
• Microsoft attributed its significant declines in Windows revenues last year largely to strong sales of netbooks that undercut its normally much more profitable business. [Source: electronista]
• Microsoft has already confirmed that it will be providing a version of Windows 7 specifically designed for netbooks. [Source: CNET UK]
• Dell and HP, the two biggest PC makers, both released a “Mini” series (the Inspiron Mini and HP Mini) in the netbooks market last year.
• 70% of the total Netbook sales have been in Europe. [Source: UMPC]

So what do we expect?

• A price war at a B2B level will definitely be transferred down to the consumer level. So expect a further slash in the netbooks prices in the US and Europe.
• With 3G services being launched in India, the netbooks sales are poised to pick up fast in the Indian market too.

What is in it for me?

Well I would like to see Microsoft extending its price cut policy to off-the-shelf windows licenses for notebooks and PCs in the Indian market. Does anyone have the exact figures of the pirated OS market in India? I am sure no one would like to go for a pirated Windows if they could get a genuine one for Rs. 500. Microsoft could sure earn heavy bucks if they get into a price cut and volume sales game in India.

Anyone from Microsoft board room reading this??? 🙂

(Source: Electronista)

(Image Credit: Digital Tech News)