Fact: Ever since Asustek released its first netbook in 2007, it has liven up the sleeping netbook market and suddenly, in a span of more than a year, netbooks have become the most popular hardware commodity. Likewise as soon as Asustek’s Eee PC awaken the sleeping netbook market, other PC manufacturers released their own netbooks one after the other. And so we’re starting to feel the saturation of the netbook market as more and more models are released almost every month.

The success of netbooks was enhanced by the release of Intel’s ATOM processor, which have tremendously increased the processing speed and battery life of netbooks, which was the only letdown in using these little machines. With the growing popularity of the netbooks, the PC industry was suddenly caught unguarded. Nobody predicted this success of netbooks. Suddenly, the PC industry are afraid that netbooks might eclipsed the popularity (if it hasn’t done so) of traditional laptops and gradually their sales as well.

But one industry major player, AMD is neither afraid nor interested to join the netbook fray. It continues to adapt a wait-and-see attitude and continues to monitor and study the behavior of the netbook market. For AMD, it is not yet clear whether or not this growing shipment of netbooks will cannibalize the sales of traditional laptops. For AMD, releasing a processor designed for netbooks is not yet in their immediate plans.

AMD’s vice president of advanced marketing told PC World that:

“We haven’t announced anything for this type of cheap mini-notebook and we’re still taking this wait-and-see attitude.”

Although, there has been no market study yet that will point out the adverse effect of netbook sales on the sales of mainstream laptops, one thing is starting to become clear though, prices of mainstream laptops are falling down to as low as $299. Obviosuly to compete with the low-cost prices of netbooks.

The declining prices of mainstream laptops maybe a good development for users, but for manufacturers’ this might severely affect the viability of their companies, unless of course if they would do something to lower the manufacturing cost of their laptops which could only mean that they will have to decrease the power and features of their products. When that happens, ultimately the consumers are still the one who are going to suffer.

The question still remains to be answered though. Are netbooks bound to kill the mainstream laptop market? What do you think?

Asus has now ventured into Cloud Computing for its Eee users. Cloud Computing has been a matter of increasing doubt these days, but is supposed to be what Google is trying to do. Cloud Computing just being like an application server tends to provide outsourcing of applications and files on external servers and services. For Netbooks, UMPCs, but also MIDs smart-phones this is of immense sense to be in place. Google has been doing the same kind in its Docs, where many users can instantaneously work on the same file.

Asus also now want to be a part of this concept of Cloud Computing and proclaims it as the “Future Technology” as per the The Eee PC News. Asus will be providing 20GB of online storage space for its Eee users, and a simple drag and drop interface for your files to download. Proving a fast wireless or 3G UMTS network for this service is certainly a good opportunity for the users to avail.

But here also comes up a point of information security, which is somewhat well handled in Google Docs, which should be focused on more to make this venture successful. Google reads well known appropriate content from their huge advertising base of their Adsense network. Asus will have to make an way out for this to be suitable for them.

As the Taiwanese DigiTimes reported, ASUS now has Eee storage and Eee Download Service. Eee already provides download files and programs and is going to support playing music and other content as soon as possible. In near future they are going to improve that service through the concept of Cloud Computing and making it more familiar to its users. But you know where the hook is? Eee download is now only for the Chinese market.

We already know that LG’s entry into the netbook market will be by way of the LG X110 netbook which will feature an Intel Atom processor, an 8.9-inch LCD display, around 2GB or HD and Windows XP OS. Now, words on the street (and we mean streets in Germany via Notebook Journal.de) says that the LG X110 will also have a GPS navigation feature.

What is not known is whether the LG X110 which will come in either a high-end model which will sell for around $784 and the low-end model which will retail for $598 Euros will both have the GPS feature.

And finally we also learn that the LG might actually release the LG X110 by October. How we wish it would be sooner than October though since by then, there would be more netbooks available in the market already, definitely more than the number of netbooks that we have right now.

What’s good about LG though, is that they can fully utilize their tie-ups with various mobile telecoms provider to arrange a promotional package or bundles for their netbooks on those telecoms carrier. That would certainly help them market their netbooks in an already saturated netbook market.

Via EeepcNews.de

Both Asustek and Acer are reportedly prepping up plans to offer their netbooks as promotional bundles with 3G online services. Asustek has already made some agreement with NTT Docomo in Japan to offer the Eee PC 701 for $.91 bundled with the company’s 3G service. Next up, it is also planning to team up with both T-Mobile and TNT in Europe to offer the Eee PC for $1.52 which is also tied-up with the companies telecoms package.

Perhaps taking a cue from Asustek, Acer is also looking at offering the same packages for their Aspire One. Acer is hell bent on achieving its five million sales target, and perhaps the best way they could achieve this is to get into these kinds of promotional gigs.

The only difference among these two companies way of marketing their netbooks is the fact that Asus is promoting its oldest netbook model which is the Eee PC 701 since it has released so many upgrades of the netbook already, and this might well be just left-over supplies which remained in their inventory. As for Acer’s Aspire One, the netbook has only been released not so along ago and it hasn’t reached the same popularity level as the Eee PC 701. So, it might still be a little early to offer the netbook at such dirt-cheap package.

But then, a corporate sales target must still stand and must be achieved at whatever cost, right ACER?

Acer has also talked with several telecommunication vendors for cooperation, which could bring the netbook bundle price down to zero which is the main reason Acer is still confident of achieving its shipments goal of five million units in 2008, the sources believe.

Asustek has launched yet another Eee PC-related product but this time its not in the form of a hardward but rather a web-related service which are still connected with the Eee PC netbooks.

First of these two products is the Eee Storage which is a 20GB web hard drive service that provides a drag and drop interface for transferring files between the Eee PC and a web storage servers managed by Asustek.

The other Eee PC-related service is the Eee PC Download which currently contains 3,000 free software and game titles which are being offered as free downloads to Eee PC owners. It doesn’t matter what model of the Eee PC you have, for as long as those are legit Asus Eee PC products, you can download these stuff into your units. The Eee PC Download will be initially offered to the Chinese-speaking Eee PC market. No official words yet as to when this will be available internationally.

CNET News Taiwan certainly created a raucus when it published actual photos of the high-end Eee PC model which will be called the Asus S101. We all know that it will come in two variants, with one getting a 32GB SSD and the other with 64GB. We also know that the Eee PC branding will now be dropped distinguish that these newer models as a high-end model from the previous iterations of the Eee PCs. Price wise, we are looking into an $899

According to CNET Crave Taiwan and HKEPC, Asus is preparing a high-end version of Eee PC that features 64GB SSD. The new laptop will named as the S101 and the Eee PC brand will be dropped to reflect the higher price tag of $899 USD for the 64GB model and $699 for the 32GB. Those price tags are definitely “high” in the standard of netbooks.

The biggest surprise of all was the Asus S101’s color which is a shiny and glossy brown. And size wise, the Asus S101 will be 16-21 mm thick not what was previously published as 16-25mm.

That’s all we know so far about this 10-inch machine. As we await for more official announcements from Asus, here’s another photo of the Asus S101 shot from a different angle and still side by side with the Eee PC 900

Via iTEchNews.net

Asus has a new device for Eee lovers, the Eee Stick. The world’s first Eee Stick is easy to use plug and play wireless controller that will bring the pleasure of playing games on your favorite Eee PC.

The Eee Stick promises the easy 3D remote features translating users´ physical hand motions into corresponding movements onscreen and providing exciting gaming enjoyment.

The Eee Stick will be bundled exclusively with certain models of the Eee PC™ and the Eee Box, along with a collection of games developed or adapted specifically for use with it. There will be a number of games that will be bundled with each Eee Stick and special Eee PC and Eee Box edition.

Theoretically the Eee Stick can operate on other PCs and gaming peripherals such as game pads and keypads, enabling users to mix and match devices in own unique playstyle.

We couldn’t help but commend MSI for coming up with a project that is part charity and part promotional campaign for its Wind Netbook. Because of what it claims as a resounding success of its 10-inch Wind netbook, MSI is giving back the love with the release of the MSI Wind Netbook Love Edition.

The new model of the MSI Wind netbook sports a tan, bright silver and shining gold hearts patter on a pure white chassis which according to MSI conveys a sense of gentle softness as well as the company’s concern for social welfare. The Wind Netbook Love Edition will be designated to support a range of notebook donation programs around the world, most specifically for chilren in the rural and remote areas. This is to help those children in learnin computer skills as well as let them connect to the world through the Internet.

In addition to the Wind Netbook Love Edition, MSI is also launching the “Love with the Wind” Global Charity Program which will take the form of charity donations in Taiwan, China, Poland, Ukraine, Turkey, Russia, Vietnam, the Philippines Indonesia, Korea and India.

No words though as to whether this special edition MSI Wind will be made available for consumer release.

For those who got excited over Lenovo’s upcoming IdeaPad S10 netbook, Crave.net Taiwan got loads of photos of this sleek-looking netbook. It’s little brother, which is now known as the IdeaPad S9 is still no where to be seen though.

As a review the IdeaPad S10 features; a 10.20-inch display, Intel Atom N270 processor, 1GB RAM, 80GB HD, Windows XP OS and weighs 1000g. While it’s little sister, the S9 will have an 8.9-inch display, 1GB RAM, 8GB SSD, Linux OS and weighs only 900g.

Price tag for the IdeaPad S10 starts at around $399. Continue reading to see some more photos.

Via [JKKMobile]

Asustek Computer (Asus) sold out of the Eee Box in the big Computex show held in Taiwan, in a surprisingly low price, on Wednesday according to the PC World Business Center. Though trying several times, Typhoon Fung Wong failed keeping Asus Eee PC out of Taiwan.

Asus offered 1000 Eee Boxes to the consumers of Taiwan for a low price of NT$7,988 i.e. US$262. Asus offered the product through several retailers and an e-store of PChome Online. The Eee Box also came with 22-inch LCD monitor, for just NT$15,988. The Eee PC 901, offered at the stores by Asus, is based on Intel’s new Atom processor of 1.6GHz, with 8.9-inch screen. The Pc has 1GB of memory, a memory-card slot and an 80GB of Hard Disk Drive. The PC supports both Windows XP and Linux and was available in any one of them. The Eee PC 901 has Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n for speedy wireless Internet, a 4-in-1 mini-storage card reader other than the standard pc features like Ethernet and USB ports. The Eee Box measures 233mm X 178mm X 16mm, without any stand, while weighs only 1 kg.

Davis Tsai, the general manager of Microsoft in Taiwan remarked it to be an economical and amazing price, when he was present in the launch ceremony. Asustek expects to ship 100,000 to 200,000 Eee Boxes by this year, says Jerry Shen, CEO of Asustek. With this Taiwan has become the second place in the world, where people are now enabled to buy Eee Box. The first one was Hong Kong, where Asus launched the sales of the mini-desktop Eee PC on July 15.

Though Asustek expects to avail most markets with Eee PC, other countries of the world have to wait until Asus fires up the production of the same. Asustek plans to heat up the markets with its Eee Pc by August, and by the end of September it should be available to you. Asia seems to be hit first now, followed by Europe and North America.