The Story of Netbooks

Netbooks started its revolution in 2007 when Asus released their Eee PC under $ 400 USD. The economy was on a downturn which made people look at cheaper options while remaining productive. The netbooks was the best choice at that time which spurred an industry revolution where we saw major players join the bandwagon from HP, Dell, Lenovo, etc.

Software giant Microsoft also recognized the power of netbooks and quickly moved to extend the life of Windows XP to make sure that Linux is not making stride and taking advantage of the power of netbooks.

Was Asus the fire starter of netbooks? Not really, the inspiration of netbooks started with Mary Lou Jepsen who was tasked to create the machine that was popularly known as the “One Laptop per Child”. The goal was to create a machine for $100 that was capable of connecting to Wifi networks, colored screen, and had a full keyboard. The users of this machine would do most of their work off the internet.

Lou Jepsen is already an engineering pioneer in the LCD screen industry who worked with Nicholas Negroponte, a visionary from MIT Media Lab to launch the “One Laptop per Child” project. The combination of these two folks guaranteed the realization and success of the project. What both people probably didn’t realize was the effect it would have to the mass market. Typically, the high-end folks is where the technology starts and roll-out to the mass market. In this case, the opposite happened. The low-end market started the explosion of sales and usage of low-end computers which trickled up to the high-end market.

Quanta is the largest Taiwanese manufacturer who has a hand in parts of Apple, HP, Dell, etc. was tasked to manufacture the “One Laptop per Child” machines. This scenario prompted Asustek, competitor of Quanta, to create low-cost, low-performance netbooks known as Asus Eee PC. Asustek was surprised that they quickly sold 350,000 units months after they launched in 2007 from its inventory which was bought by middle-class consumers in America and Europe. By the end of the 2008, Asustek has sold 5 million netbooks and the industry has sold over 10 million units.

As I have previously written, netbooks are going to sell for 41 million units in 2012 and the success of the netbooks would continue for years to come.

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