Are netbooks headed the way of the dodo bird?

Recently Stu Pann; vice prez in the sales and marketing group at Intel, said at a conference that Intel is taking a second look at the whole ‘netbook’ idea. It appears that they first thought of the netbooks as being for the emerging markets or for younger kids. However the bulk of netbooks sales have been happening in Western Europe and North America by people who just want to grab and go.

On top of this we have AMD which has for the most part intentionally ignored the netbook market. Although they have said that they wouldn’t turn down the business if computer makers wanted to use their upcoming Huron and Consus CPU for netbook designs. From AMD’s point of view the screen size is too small and the disappointing. Bahr Mahony, director of notebook product marketing at AMD, points to the high return rates of netbooks in Europe to back up this opinion.

This same underlying feeling was echoed by Intel’s Pann when Brooke Crothers quoted him in a post

And the most revealing statement? “If you’ve ever used a Netbook and used a 10-inch screen size–it’s fine for an hour. It’s not something you’re going to use day in and day out.”

Ah, no kidding. when these netbooks first first announced I couldn’t see them as being a real viable alternative for the majority of computer users; and I still don’t