Netbook Sales to Decline, Say Makers

The IT industry is full of buzzwords, most notably in the mobile space. We've got laptops, notebooks, ultra-portables, netbooks, MIDs, and more acronyms than you can shake a stick at.

We had the chance to sit down with several manufacturers to speak about the trend for netbooks and similar size portables. Their forecast: netbooks to see a decline going into Q3 of this year. One manufacturer, who makes a famous netbook that many associate for use as hackintoshes, told us that its management even wanted to shift resources back into other business areas such as graphics cards and motherboards.

There's more netbook supply than can be had say the manufacturers. There was a lot of hype and excitement that built up, but eventually we fell into the current economic crisis. Despite the idea that netbooks are cheaper to buy, many users already have regular notebooks that they purchased in the last year to three years. This makes netbooks more of a want than a need for many.

There's no denying that netbooks have the portable appeal, but many industry insiders feel that because of their size, they provide a good long-duration computing experience.

Do you have a notebook and a netbook? Do you feel netbooks are useful?