It's interesting that ESR implies netbooks are an endpoint. Replacing his opinion with mine, they're not. In general, laptops are still too expensive and heavy, and phones still haven't caught up in functionality/cost. My netbook is a stopgap measure, and it works because I do most of my work on bigger hardware; when I replace it in a few years, I won't be looking to replicate the experience.
Quick math: if the burn rate is $12bn/year, and there are a (handwavy) billion Windows || Office licenses bought or renewed each year, that's $12 per license to break even -- and that's excluding revenue from Sharepoint etc. Pricing on both products can fall quite a bit before they're in the red.
And it probably won't matter, if the home PC goes the way of the landline phone. I assume that's the market ESR is concerned about, anyway.
Quick math: if the burn rate is $12bn/year, and there are a (handwavy) billion Windows || Office licenses bought or renewed each year, that's $12 per license to break even -- and that's excluding revenue from Sharepoint etc. Pricing on both products can fall quite a bit before they're in the red.
And it probably won't matter, if the home PC goes the way of the landline phone. I assume that's the market ESR is concerned about, anyway.