And don't they have iPhones, iTouch, various other phones w/ web capabilities and already cheap laptops? Phft... my eyes are shooting blood, due to the ridiculousness of this so-called innovation for the new century.

That is so true. =X My sister and bro-in-law, including my parents and their friends, are just like that. Actually, my wife, co-worker and boss are the same way, as well. From my experience, there's just not that many tech-savvy people in the world. You'd think there were, now that it's 2009 and computers pretty much run our lives... but you'd be wrong. ;/

This is really quite simple.....As it was stated in an earlier post M$ is just trying to keep netbooks netbooks, and notebooks notebooks. They already give a pretty good discount to netbook manufacturers and dont want the hardware people to take advantage of a loophole. I do agree Microsoft has had its issues in the past but come on people, if you cry wolf at every thing microsoft does than how do you expect people to listen when they actually do somthing truly shiesty. Linux will never be mainstream until its as easy to use out of the box as windows (even ubuntu is not, i use it everyday at work, along with xp, vista, 7, fedora, and redhat) and once windows 7 is available to oem's linux will lose most the ground its gained with the failer of Vista. You cannot forget that 90% or more of the people that use computers will not by a product unless it does what a computer is supposed to do out of the box with no other work needed. "Web surfing", uploading pics from a camera, wordprocessing and listening to music is why most people by a computer and windows does all of those things out of the box without much or any tech knowledge needed. Until something better comes along Windows will control the majority of the OS market, Its capitalism people. If you dont like it develop somthing that the average person will like better, just like what we saw in the gaming industy with the Nintendo Wii. Im a tech person and i dont really want a wii, but 99% of the people in the world love it becasue its easy to use and fits the bill for what a game system is meant to be, fun.

Sigh. I may be in error to think most people out there would be capable of loading xp on their new no OS notebook. Human stupidity is the only thing in the universe more common than hydrogen. Still the obvious answer was posted above. Just include some free OS with the netbook as well as XP drivers and let those that can install XP do so.

Identify yourself if you want credibility

This is a total BS move by Microsoft. They, as a "software" company, should not have the right to change the licencing requirment on there software 8 years into the game because it dosen't fit their plans to push a newer software. Now the do have the right to discountinue a product and buy back any unsold copies to eliminate the sales of the older software. They should have to endure the use of the remaing OEM licences that they have already sold, under the licencing that was in place at the time of sale.

I could not agree more! M$ is limiting innovation, but that's not news, is it? I guess it is because they are afraid that xp on hybrid ssd systems will outperform vista....That, in my opinion, is why they don't want more than 1Gb ram and no hybrid ssd system...
I have left M$ behind me a long time ago, and have never looked back but in sheer joy...

"Umuntu ngumuntu ngabanye bantu" - Xhosa saying.
(People are people because of other people) And NOT because of M$ I might add!

open source is the future, not M$!

Perhaps it is you that has missed the point? I am an IT professional and am extremely tired of either having to choose from my tiny Blackberry or huge, powerful, HEAVY laptop.

I want something that is in between. I want it to be usable and not take 10 years to load a simple application. I want it to be cheap, lightweight and easy to take with me to the beach or wherever I have to go that work may beckon me, and shaving off 5-6 pounds of a laptop and getting a decent sized keyboard, tossing aside the Blackberry all are things that IT pros would want. I think netbook fills a pretty big market gap for both noobs and pros alike.

What people want, more than anything else, is reliabilty, combined with low cost, and high speed.
The netbook does not appear to offer reliability nor true low cost, but with the use of Linux and a flash drive, it gets a lot closer...
But there remains the reliability issue which no small unit provides, nor does a flash drive.
The internet remains under the control of the big boys. Until the internet is wrested away from the economic power base, all we have are pipe dreams.

Again MS strangling the market in pushing a un-tested product 7, Vista being dumped on the market with no back up or work arounds for hard ware issues left again to the manufactures to come up with the solutions , again savingMS the development of their product , admit it MS are just out to screw the world people are now the power they want what works , the Net book proves we have all been buying Laptops for years that are over spec .
Linxus should do well the future is not MS get over it they need to take a back seat .

Never happened before, and isn't going to happen now... Until somebody provides the leadership, the support, and the fully operational install disks, along with the adjustments to the various tools, Microsoft rules... Unix and Linux and other lost cost no-name programs are not going to find themselves sold in stores, and supported by install and repair services.

Too bad, but that is the way it is... after 20 years, these programs which are often very high in quality and usability, are not going to make it into the mainstream.

As long as most folks want a computer to read their email and type a letter to their broker, this is not going to change.

MS has lost it

People are going to want XP and we know why- XP dosn't have bad reviews, or you have to download a program to avoid going into the registry just to get it to not annoy you, and lots of other reasons. MS has lost it with this! They took a wrong turn.