Windows 7 a tough sell on netbooks? No kidding!

Intel CEO, Paul Otellini, is quoted in the Industry Standard saying that convincing netbook buyers to upgrade from the stripped down Windows 7 Starter Edition to full-blown Windows 7 will be a tough sell.

He's absolutely right, especially in educational markets where there is increasing amounts of open source expertise. Here's the scenario Microsoft envisions:

1. Users buy netbooks to save money over traditional laptops (in education, this translates to faster adoption of 1:1 initialtive)
2. Users, dissatisfied with the ability to only run three programs and wanting to access the remaining feature set of Windows 7, will pay for an upgrade (that will already be pre-installed, but require payment/licensing to unlock)
3. Users will now happily run Windows 7 on their netbooks, whose price, because of the licensing, will start approaching that of traditional laptops

As the Standard article asks,

For many buyers, a full-sized laptop with a more powerful Intel or other processor just isn't worth the money. If netbook buyers won't spend more money on a CPU, why would they spend more on an operating system?

A tough sell indeed. Here's my proposed scenario:

1. Users buy netbooks with Linux installed (or school IT staff install the Linux OS of their choice themselves) to save money over traditional laptops (in education, this translates to faster adoption of 1:1 initialtive)
2. Users happily run some flavor of Linux on their netbooks, complete with full office productivity suites, no anti-malware needs, and the same initial cost of acquisition for which they bargained when they purchased the laptops.

Are Paul Otellini and I right? Talk back below and let us know.