December 29, 2008 We’ve just passed a significant point in the history of computing – the notebook has taken over from the desktop as the most popular computing platform, an inevitable milestone on the road to ubiquitous mobile computing and connectivity. Fuelled by the success of the emerging netbook http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psion_Netbook   market, global notebook PC http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Laptop  shipments rose almost 40 percent in the third quarter of 2008 compared to the same period of 2007 to reach 38.6 million units. Conversely, desktop PC shipments declined by 1.3 percent for the same period to 38.5 million units.

In taking over as the primary computing form factor, the notebook is probably just holding the baton for a few years before its constituent sub-set of netbooks dominates the market – just 500,000 netbooks were sold in 2007, over 10 million this year and IDC predicts 40 million units by 2012. The emergence of the cut down, lightweight, cloud computing netbook has been the big story of 2008. It has taken just 60 years to squeeze a computer which filled a room, into a usable form factor of less then 1 kilogram and a price less than a weekly wage. One wonders what the next decade holds in store for us.

Further reading @ www.gizmag.com

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