Microsoft has been growing its share of the Netbook segment in recent months, but it's largely on the back of the company's older Windows XP product, rather than Windows Vista.
The trend toward the small, cheap notebooks has not been lost on the software maker, however. When the topic turns to Windows 7 at the Professional Developers Conference next week, I would expect the software maker to talk about an operating system that can run well on all manner of laptops, including the ultra-low-end.
It's just one of many topics expected to come up at the conference, which takes place in downtown Los Angeles next week. CNET News will be there in force with live blogs, analysis, and some really high-level executive interviews. You can find all our PDC coverage both now and during the show from our PDC special coverage page.
Most of the Windows talk at next week's show will come Tuesday, on day two of the event, while the first day's keynote speech is expected to focus on "Windows Cloud," or "Windows Strata," or whatever the company has decided to call its cloud-based operating system. Steve Ballmer mentioned Microsoft might have a trademark by the time of PDC, but my search Friday didn't turn up anything for Windows Cloud or Windows Strata.
Day two will also feature talk of Office 14, the next version of Office, with sources saying that the company will show off some features, including its ability to run inside a Web browser.
As for the Netbooks, it's a critical segment for Microsoft to be competitive in, growing far faster than the market as a whole. It's also the first slice of the desktop market where Microsoft has seen a significant level of competition from Linux.
After many of the initial models were Linux only, Microsoft has hustled back with versions of XP that can run on flash-based memory. As some of the Netbooks have started to come with traditional hard drives, some Vista models, such as HP's 2133, have also cropped up.
Microsoft has declined to comment on Windows 7 ahead of the conference. The company has said that it will outline the product in detail and give attendees a pre-beta version of the operating system.
Windows 7 and Windows Cloud may be the stars of Microsoft's Professional Developer Conference, but the next version of Office has also landed a role in the production.
Office 14, as the product is code-named, will be discussed at next week's event, with attendees likely to get a peek at a couple of its features, according to sources. Unlike Windows 7, though, folks shouldn't expect to leave Los Angeles with a copy of their own.
In particular, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has talked recently about the idea that the next version of Office will be able to run in various modes, including over the Internet.
"We will rewrite Office to work in a browser," he said in an interview with Britain's Computer Weekly.
Microsoft employees also got a peek at Office 14's versatility during the company's recent annual employee meeting.
This job opening for the "Office Web Companions team" offers a bit more on what was shown.
"Featured at the 2008 Company Meeting, the Web Companions organization is at the center of Office's Software plus Services transformation, coordinating this key vision area for Office '14'," Microsoft said in a job listing for a lead software development engineer. "Working together with partners across Office and beyond, we are tasked with delivering best-in-class Office Web Applications that expand the reach of the traditional client apps in a wide variety of innovative ways, delivering server, service, and browser client features."
It's not clear how deep the Office 14 discussion will be at PDC. Only two sessions are currently listed with the Office tag, and neither sounds particularly likely to cover new ground. One is on Office business applications, and the other deals with the software's Open XML file formats.
A Microsoft representative declined to offer details on Office 14 or what the company plans to show at PDC.
With less than two weeks until Microsoft's Professional Developer Conference kicks off in Los Angeles, news is starting to trickle out.
Come October 27, that trickle will turn into a flood. Here at CNET News we want to make sure you keep your head above water. To that end, our PDC page is already up and running.
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Microsoft)
You can bookmark that page and be sure that whenever you check it you will be up on the latest PDC-related info as well as catch any stories on the products expected to make headlines at the show.
Already there are a ton of posts up, including our scoop on the Surface developer kit, the latest on Windows 7 along with what little we know about Windows Cloud, or Windows Strata, or whatever Microsoft's "Cloud OS" will eventually come to be known as.
Once the show gets under way, check back for in-depth keynote coverage, executive interviews, photo galleries, videos, and more.
In the meantime, feel free to drop me a note on what you want to see covered. I'll also be answering questions on Friday as part of CNET's Editor's Office Hours feature.
A screenshot of Microsoft's PDC Web site, which appears to confirm the Windows Strata name.
(Credit: CNET News)Last week, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer talked about "Windows Cloud"--the company's long-rumored cloud operating system.
At the time, though, he noted that the Windows Cloud name was not necessarily the final name. On Wednesday, an eagle-eyed blogger noticed that the Web site for Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference was listing several cloud computing sessions under the subject heading "Windows Strata." Microsoft has since taken down the Windows Strata references, but not before a number of blogs noted the listing.
In his talks last week, Ballmer quipped that by the PDC, Microsoft might even have a trademark for whatever it was going to call the cloud operating system, which he dubbed "Windows Cloud."
"We'll need a new operating system," Ballmer said in France. "Just as we have an operating system for the PC, for the phone, and for the server, we need a new operating system that runs in the Internet. I bet we'll call it Windows something. We're going to announce it in four weeks. We might even have a trademark by then."
I checked the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Web site Wednesday morning and didn't see anything under the heading "Windows Strata," but that could be just a matter of time. Microsoft might also want to have a chat with these folks.
In any case, Microsoft is expected to detail the new Internet-based developer platform, as well as Windows 7, at PDC, which starts October 27 in Los Angeles.
A Microsoft representative said, via e-mail: "As you know, Microsoft uses internal code names for pending technologies and from time to time they make their way to the public. We're looking forward to talking more about our cloud services platform at the Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles."
It's not the first time that Microsoft has elected to break news via its PDC session listings. On Monday, I noted that Microsoft had confirmed in one of its listings that it would be making available to PDC attendees a software development kit for its Surface tabletop computer.
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