Asus announced it before and we all knew it was coming, so when Asus announced they will offer Windows XP on the new Eee PC 900 when it ships it was no surprise. Still, a comment made at the announcement, which ZDNet covered, by a Microsoft employee was both interesting and very funny. The Microsoft employee, whose name was Thomas Bauer, said, referring to the Eee PC, that “We couldn’t go the Vista route” and that “We are in close discussions with Asus [regarding] how to take that forward… in regards to the Windows 7 Europe timeframe,” according to ZDNet.

Unless I very much misinterpreted that, the translation of that quote would be something like: We could not use Vista, but we will think about using Windows 7. In other words, even Microsoft admits Vista does not work well on the Eee PC, presumably because of its resource requirements.

Beyond the funniness (is that a word?) of the comment, it is actually quite interesting. If what he said does, in fact, represent Microsoft’s view of Vista, it means that perhaps Microsoft has realized that Vista is not better than XP for everything. Additionally it suggests that Microsoft plans to target lower specification devices, but not with Vista. Unless Microsoft suddenly starts making new additions to XP, which seems unlikely, it seems like Linux may corner the Eee PC-like market before Microsoft really even introduces a serious competitor (in 5 years.)

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