When netbooks were first introduced to market, a lot of people didn’t know where these devices were headed. After all, it was a time when many were rocking OS X and Windows Vista with Intel Core 2 Duo processors, then netbooks came along with a lightweight flavor of Linux and low-power Celeron chips. Slowly but surely Linux gained market share thanks to the popularity of netbooks that followed, but soon people realized they needed Windows on these machines, and Linux was forgotten again little by litte. Now, Robin Harris from ZDNet says that Windows currently claims an 80% attach rate for netbooks. It appears people just still can’t live without help from Microsoft on their computers.

Does this mean that Linux will now just fade away like a fad, and its usage remain only with the hardcore computer users that want more freedom than compatibility in their computing setups? Something tells me yes. And with the advent of Windows 7 for netbooks, especially if Microsoft gets the pricing right upon final release, we just might never see Linux on netbooks ever again. When that happens, I can’t say I will be surprised. I’ll probably just wonder why it hasn’t happened sooner.

Via Storage Bits