Microsoft Puts Limits on XP for Netbooks

It was a hit and within months virtually all the netbooks on the market were available with XP. While Microsoft dearly wanted to terminate sales of XP, the company had an even greater desire to make money and maintain market dominance. Since last July, when Windows 7 became available to corporate customers, XP's market share has fallen by 10 points while Windows 7 use has surged from less than 1 percent to nearly 13 percent share in the same time period. Since even before the release of Windows 7, however, Microsoft has waged a fairly successful campaign to age XP out of the netbook market and When the netbook trend hit in 2007, Microsoft was initially caught flat footed by the sudden demand for an operating system to run on a less expensive and less capable PC replacement. The first netbooks shipped with Linux but were not well-received because customers wanted an operating system they knew.