Myabe I'm biased (working with Microsoft tech), but if Microsoft indeed "crushed" these netbooks it would only be because of the failing of competing operating systems.

Myself, I use Ubuntu on my netbook and have no issue with that (since I use it mostly for terminals and Firefox), but the current releases aren't exactly polished diamonds either.

If Microsoft were one day to go away and die, I wonder what all these people who constantly blame them for absolutely everything between the heavens and earth would do when it turned out the world didn't automatically turn into a perfect, flawless dream-world.