[potatolicious]

I disagree. Netbooks are a fad that will not last over a few years. For one thing, the margins on netbooks are even slimmer than the cheapo laptops Dell was making before the "netbook revolution", and manufacturers are getting murdered left and right by this.

It's the Wal-Mart effect - you flood a market suddenly with cheap, shoddy product and people will jump for it, but it's not sustainable as your vendors and suppliers start dying off.

Profit margins are disappearing for the likes of Asus, Dell, and HP, and they're skating on thinner ice than ever before. Would you rather be selling $300 computers at a $5 profit each, or $1200 computers at a $100 profit each?

People got on Sony's back early on when they claimed that the introduction of a netbook will do nothing but start a "race to the bottom". They were attacked for being out of touch with reality and trying to peddle overpriced ultra-portable notebooks. But they were right.