It used to be that if you only wanted to pay $199 for a brand-new laptop, you’d have to try your luck on Black Friday or pick up a Chromebook. Not so anymore. Microsoft COO Kevin Turner outed a $199 HP Windows laptop called the Stream at the company’s Worldwide Partner Conference this morning, and it should see the light of day in time for the holiday season. Fine, it doesn’t sound like the biggest deal ever. There are already a few solid Windows laptops floating around there for less than $100 more, after all, and at this point no one’s sure what $199 will actually get you. That’s a fair point, but c’mon: on some level this move is all about symbolism. Microsoft is telling the industry, and the consumers that fuel that immaculate machine, that it’s not giving up low-end computing to Google without a fight.
Microsoft is aiming straight for Google’s Chromebooks this holiday season. At the company’s partner conference today, Microsoft COO Kevin Turner revealed that HP is planning to release a $199 laptop running Windows for the holidays. Turner didn’t provide specifications for HP’s “Stream” device, but he did detail $249 laptop options from Acer and Toshiba. Acer’s low-cost laptop will ship with a 15.6-inch screen and a 2.16GHz Intel Celeron processor, and Toshiba’s includes a 11.6-inch display. It appears that Intel’s Celeron chips will help Microsoft’s PC partners push out cheaper devices in the race to the bottom. Turner also revealed that HP is planning to release 7- and 8-inch versions of its new “Stream” PCs for $99 this holiday season, both running versions of Windows. “We are going to participate at the low-end,” says Turner. “We’ve got a great value proposition against Chromebooks, we are not ceding the market to anyone.” Microsoft has been gradually cutting Windows license costs to allow PC makers to reduce their device prices, and it’s clear the software maker is taking the Chromebook threat even more seriously this year. While Microsoft has attempted to undermine Chromebooks previously, competitive pricing will likely have a bigger chance of stemming any threat from Google’s laptops. Microsoft will just have to ensure that its PC partners don’t turn this pricing opportunity into a second round of underpowered Netbooks, otherwise the simplicity and performance of Chrome OS might just tempt holiday shoppers away from Windows.
