Quo vadis, Netbook?

Zitat

Intel’s watchful eye took notice of the OLPC project. While Santa Clara initially dismissed the XO as a "gadget" without the capability to run the PC applications users would need to improve their lives, the CPU giant quickly decided to start a competing project in early 2006. It will probably never be clear what Intel’s true intentions were in starting such an initiative.

In June 2007, the same month VIA announced the Nanobook, ASUS announced a new subnotebook called the Eee. This new subnotebook was closely based on the Intel Classmate PC platform, which they promised would pack a Celeron ULV processor, 512MB of RAM, a 4GB SSD, and a Linux OS into a 7" platform weighing less than two pounds, for only $200.

After Intel announced the netbook platform in June, an absurd number of OEMs announced and launched netbooks in the space of a few months. Netbook OEMs now include 3K, ASUS, Acer, ... , Toshiba, Van Der Led, and Zoostorm, the last name a fitting description for the gaggle of manufacturers now numbering 38 companies.

All together, the best available reports indicate that between 14 million and 18 million netbooks were sold in 2008. The flood of sales is so great that netbook parts, including Intel's Atom processor and LCD panels for netbook displays, have sometimes been running in short supply.

The current wave of netbooks aren't engineering marvels or demonstrations of prowess, like the 200LX or Libretto. It doesn't take the might of HP or Toshiba to bring one to market, and they aren't a premium-priced product. The technology has arrived, the parts have emerged, and the economics of production have shifted to allow it to happen cheaply. It really does look like, in some form, netbooks, or rather super-small sized x86 computers, will be a persistent artifact of computing history for the foreseeable future.