Microsoft to netbooks: You can't harm our bottom line.

Microsoft claims that Windows runs on 96 percent of netbooks, a number that might not take into account users who purchase one of the devices and then install an alternate open-source operating system. Traditional wisdom has dictated that, for every stripped-down version of Windows installed on a netbook, Microsoft was forced to eat lower margins than if the consumer had purchased a Cadillac of a PC installed with Windows 7 Home premium.

But according to Charles Songhurst, Microsoft's general manager of corporate strategy, Microsoft's not sweating the robust purchases of netbooks - because enough consumers are apparently buying Cadillac-caliber devices, even with laggard PC sales amidst a severe global recession, to make the numbers balance out. So he said during a question-and-answer session at New York's Jefferies Annual Technology Conference on Sept. 14.

"Do those relevant SKUs cannibalize the high end? From what we see, they're incremental," Songhurst told the audience. "We see in netbooks in the U.S., often some of the best buyers of those are people that already have one or two laptops, and they're buying them for specific scenarios because of the small form factor."

Even as the number of netbooks proliferates in the marketplace, the price-point for more expensive PCs continues to rise; that trend, Songhurst added, helps balance out the effects of any netbook cannibalism on Microsoft's margins. "Because we don't think the bound top of the PC is decreasing, we think it's a net beneficial to us."

(You can find the transcript of the conference here, by the way.)

Songhurst's statement is an interesting reflection on Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's comments over the summer, that Microsoft and its ecosystem partners would attempt to steer consumers toward pricier "ultra-thins" during the upcoming holiday season.

"When a customer says, 'We want a netbook with a bigger screen, we'll say, 'Here's an ultrathin,'" Ballmer told an audience at Microsoft's annual Financial Analyst Meeting on July 30. "We want people to be able to get the advantages of lightweight performance and be able to spend more money with us."

At a price point above that of regular netbooks, with a processor capable of running a sturdier (and more expensive) version of Windows 7, ultrathins - if they proved to be bestsellers - could help buoy Microsoft's margins. (Interestingly, Songhurst suggested that Microsoft has traditionally charged OEMs around $60 for copies of Windows.)

So, Microsoft previously made noises that it wants to move consumers away from netbooks. Now Redmond seems to want to give the impression that netbooks have little effect, either way. There is a way to reconcile these two viewpoints, of course: no matter how netbooks affect their bottom line, Microsoft just wants that bottom line to be larger.