Microsoft is planning to offer several editions of their upcoming Windows 7 for Netbooks. Microsoft wants consumers to opt for the more expensive versions of Windows 7.

"That upgrade’s going to be tough for a bunch of reasons. Microsoft has to figure out: What’s their strategy?” Intel Chief Executive Officer Paul Otellini said at an investor conference in San Francisco last week.

According to an e-mail invitation sent to Beta-testers 2 months ago, Microsoft is seeking testers to run a test version of Windows 7 on machines that sound a lot like netbooks, which made it clear that Microsoft wants to introduce Windows 7 onto the Netbook market. According to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer he will make sure consumers can "trade up" if they are not comfortable with a slimmed down version of Windows 7 on their Netbook.

Microsoft does also get though competition from another big player in the industry: Google. Google has anounced recently it will release a Linux/Android Netbook version & subsidize (3G) network operators to bundle it with a service contract. Mobile operators like Tele2 & T-Mobile already offered Linux based Netbooks with 3G contracts, which sold pretty well.

Bloomberg.com did publish an interesting article about the upcoming Netbook version of Windows 7 a few days ago with some remarkable statements about this release from several analysts/specialists from Gartner & the PC industry.