2008 was definitely “The Year of the Netbook”, as their shipments exploded like crazy. According to IDC it was over 10M units in 2008. In Asia alone there are already over 10 notebook manufacturers.

With a price tag of less than US $500, coupled with its compact size, the netbook has quickly becoming very popular in the consumer market for casual apps like internet browsing and video- clip watching. Even on my everyday subway commute I can notice the change. There used to be about 4 people playing with their NDS/PSP in one compartment, but now at least 2 of those people are using their netbooks to watch video or play games.  

At their current price points, netbooks are even cheaper than some high-end smartphones (e.g. iPhone and HTC Touch HD etc) .  To that point, service providers (e.g. .g. PCCW in Hong Kong , Chunghwa Telecom in Taiwan)  are treating netbooks as mobile phones, bundling them with mobile broadband services (HSDPA/ WiFi ).

In the past, mobile operators have tried very hard to encourage more data usage on mobile networks in order to increase their revenue streams. However, with certain device limitation, (screen size, processing power) on mobile phones, mobile data usage was still not very popular.

The netbook may now provide the right hardware platform to improve the mobility of certain applications like Desktop Video Conferencing. Every netbook is equipped with a camera (at least 130M pixel) and with an aggressive mobile broadband bundle package (flat monthly rate and speed up to 7.2 Mbps), users can have video conferencing anywhere they like.

Next time you need to attend the midnight video conference call with your overseas headquarters, you don’t need to stay home – just take a netbook and you can comfortably sit in a bar and enjoy …