Small laptops are becoming a big problem for Microsoft's Windows business.A new breed of lightweight computers called netbooks are beginning to crack the company's dominance of operating systems

At first glance, Microsoft’s software portfolio — Windows, Office, Small Business Server and Exchange — still dominates the small business market. But Red Hat CEO Jim Whiteshurst says his company has found a back door into the small business market. Perhaps surprisingly, it doesn’t really involve desktop Linux.

It really doesn’t matter much whether the world’s netbook owners prefer Windows XP to Ubuntu Linux so why was Microsoft’s Windows communication manager Brandon LeBlanc so excited about his rather dubious sales statistics?

ABI Research is projecting that in 2009 Linux will represent 32 percent of netbook sales, far higher than the seven percent figure claimed by Microsoft, says a report. ABI also estimates that Linux will overtake Windows on netbooks by 2013, largely due to sales in less-developed countries, says the story.

Bucking the conventional wisdom and Microsoft press releases, ABI Research says that Linux has a 32% share of the netbook market - and predicts Linux will overtake Windows by 2013. Microsoft says “. . . over 93% of worldwide small notebook PCs run Windows today.” They can’t both be right.

Microsoft has warned users of its new Windows Home Server that the device could corrupt data when saving files from certain applications. The results could ruin family photos, small-business records or anything else users save on the system. The problem is the latest of three significant quality-control fumbles Microsoft has committed this year, said analyst Michael Cherry.

When Microsoft employee, Brandon LeBlanc announced that Microsoft ruled the netbook world, he was exaggerating, shall we say, just a wee bit. I was going to stomp on him but Chris Kenyon of Canonical, the business that stands behind Ubuntu, beat me to it.

Microsoft Corp. has dramatically cut the price of Windows Vista in China in a bid to boost sales of its new operating system.

Though Linux has evolved considerably over the years, it has yet to eclipse the popularity of Microsoft’s Windows operating system at the consumer and small business level- which is dominated by “desktop” computer sales.