Digital Home Thoughts: The Life of a Netbook; Short and Sweet

"Quoting unnamed sources from netbook manufacturers, DigiTimes reported yesterday that HP and Dell -- the world's number one and number three PC manufacturers -- are scaling back production due to disappointing sales of new netbooks powered by Intel’s new Atom N450 "Pineview" processor. (The story was posted on April 1 report, but the pretty-much-all-business DigiTimes has never been known for its practical jokes.)"

It seems like only yesterday that I heard about the original ASUS eee netbook. A liliputian 7" micro-laptop that was designed for light duty, portability and a really low price point. Since then, the netbook has changed dramatically as manufacturers tried hard to figure out what consumers wanted. Now, there is news that HP and Dell are not selling them as well as one would like. There could be a lot of reasons for this; saturation of the market, nothing exciting about the new netbooks, other alternatives such as smart phones and slate tablets. I honestly think that even if the netbook disappears, it has done a fair bit to invigorate the market. Since the netbook, we have seen much more experimentation and as much as I hate change, I consider this to be a good thing. Hopefully, the momentum will keep up and we will see more changes.