Stone Group, manufacturers of hardware for the education industry, issued a warning today to all schools with netbook PCs as part of their mobile learning setup. The company is urging these schools to re-evaluate their future plans, as the Window 7 Starter operating system phase out makes way for Microsoft Windows 8.

On October 26th, with the release of Microsoft Windows 8, the netbook-specific Windows 7 Starter operating system is going end-of-life. As a result, netbooks will face a cost increase of at least 40.00 per device going forward. Offering little comfort to those with site-wide Microsoft licensing agreements, the subsequent qualifying entry point for volume licensing customers wishing to run Windows 7 Professional or Windows 8 Professional will be Windows 8 which carries the same cost increase.

It has been suggested that this may signal a faster decline in the use of netbooks in schools and lead to faster adoption of alternatives such as ultra-slim notebooks, tablets, parental contribution schemes and even Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policies.

The changes to netbook licensing affects any educational institutions that have a Microsoft volume licensing agreement.

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