Ed Bott walks through what it’s like to live with Windows 7 Starter Edition on a Netbook. Recall, this permutation of Windows 7 only supports three apps at a time.
His conclusion?
“In short, when I used this system as a netbook, it worked just fine. On a netbook, most of the tasks you’re likely to tackle are going to take place in a browser window anyway. If you use Google Chrome or Firefox or Internet Explorer, you can check your mail using Gmail or Hotmail or Outlook Web Access, build a spreadsheet in Google Docs or Zoho, check Facebook or Windows Live, Twitter to your heart’s content, read your favorite feeds in Google Reader or NewsGator, and Web-surf till you run out of memory. All of those tasks count as only a single program, because they’re running within one or more identical processes belonging to your preferred web browser.”
I actually agree with his premise that most people would do fine with a Netbook–since they live in the browser most of the time anyway. Netbooks–in their current form–aren’t that great for running Photoshop and the like. Think light. Not heavy.
Now as to whether Microsoft should actually be trimming down Windows 7 this way? Personally I don’t think so. If you ask me, a better approach would have been to create a version of Windows 7 tuned for Netbooks–something that makes it work better. Leave the 3 app limitation. That’s fine. However, add something else that makes sense for Netbooks. Without this, the approach leaves Microsoft open for criticism.
It’s not the three app limit that’s really got me concerned, though. I’m worried about the lack of Touch and ink support in this version of Windows. The problem is that Netbooks are starting to add more and more touch and ink features. This is a problem. Why? Because as I blogged about yesterday, the OEMs can just as well add their own ink and touch features to their Netbook platforms. They don’t need to upgrade to a “premium” experience. They can create their own.
It’s not just Netbooks that I’m concerned about here too. I’m intently watching the eBook space. We’re getting closer and closer to ink support in these platforms. It’s going to seem like a natural for them to support handwriting recognition. However, if Microsoft keeps its handwriting recognition in top teir version of Windows, the opportunity to grow the SDK franchise with these products is going to be missed. Later it can be done, but in the meantime growth is going to be surpressed (because of the lack of Windows support) and the market fragmented (because other companies will come up with intermediary fixes).
Of course, the same issues are going on in browsers, Silverlight, mobile phones, and so on. If you ask me, it doesn’t take much to realize that its the API that’s the key here–not Windows. That’s at least my view from the developer and consumer side. Yes, we want it all.