May 26, 2009

It's the question vexing hardware vendors everywhere: How do they seize on the fervor and froth of the netbook craze without cannibalizing sales of their higher-priced, higher-margin notebooks?

After all, if the current crop of netbooks can run the majority of users' day-to-day computing tasks -- and my recent personal experience with an HP Mini 2140 shows that they indeed can -- then what's to stop these same users from ditching their notebook habit altogether in favor of the lighter-weight and increased battery life of a full-time netbook?

Now we're hearing that Microsoft is about to weigh in on the matter. The company already muddied the netbook hardware waters when it set forth its byzantine "maximum hardware requirements" for netbooks running Windows XP Home. And with Windows 7 just around the corner, the company is reportedly preparing an updated set of parameters.

In a nutshell, the acceptable netbook screen size is decreasing (from 12.1 inches to 10.2 inches), the acceptable storage capacity is increasing (from a 32GB solid-state drive or 160GB hard disk drive to 64GB SSD/250GB HDD), and restrictions on touch and other Windows 7-centric features are being lifted.