“In its most recent report based on its UMDs (Ultra-mobile
Devices) study, which covers netbooks, MIDs, and UMPCs, ABI
Research says that almost 35 million netbooks will be shipped by
manufacturers in 2009.“ABI did not publicly break out sales by specific segment or
operating system, but a ComputerWorld story today by Eric Lai
quotes ABI analyst Jeff Orr as saying that the study shows that 32
percent (about 11 million netbooks) of this year’s netbook
shipments will be used with a Linux-based operating system. Since
Apple has yet to release a netbook, the remaining 68 percent
belongs to Microsoft Windows, projects ABI.“As Lai points out, despite the two to one edge for Windows,
this is a far cry from the 96 percent advantage Microsoft claimed
to have enjoyed in April. Microsoft has now updated its projection,
telling Lai that “over 93 percent of worldwide small notebook PCs
run Windows today.” This would suggest that even Microsoft agrees
that Linux netbook sales have rebounded, at least slightly.