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While desktop PC sales fell for two consecutive years in 2007 and 2008, and while the whole PC industry is contracting further, notebook sales continue to increase (helping overall the industry). Moreover, in 2008, for the first time in history, notebook sales (38.6 mio units) have outpaced desktops (38.5 mio units). Mininotebooks seem to do very well and some suppliers aim for the $200 a peace with less computing power or storage and run with Linux. Asus has had good results with EeePc, Apple launched the 17 inch MacBook (world’s thinnest and lightest), HP launched Mini 2140 and Sony launched the P-Series.

Clearly the market is segmented. I would expect that power users will continue to use desktop PCs for games (although specialised consoles took serious bytes at the gaming market), businesses will continue running on PCs if they get a good feature/price bargain. People will most likely continue to go for notebooks instead of desktops as personal computers, for obvious reasons: mobility and price (continues to fall). Mobility means that you can take it with you on trips and it is easier to move with it (especially for students). Of course, in desktops offered by computer dealers are usually more powerful, but that does not matter any more for regular users for which an average notebook dues more than it is required.

Mininotebooks on the other hand are an open subject, in that we don’t really know at this moment where it’s heading. Most probably this is the playground of further innovation and developments on within the market. Notebooks and mininotebooks took turns as disrupting innovations on the desktop PC market mostly because they only started selling really well when the prices of notebooks became close or smaller in some instances than the prices for desktops. There is some confusion on what the face of the future of mininotebook will look like, and research departed from two distinct points: notebooks were shrunk / mobile phones were empowered. Therefore now we have iPhone and Asus EeePC fighting seemingly for the same place in the market. Will surcharged mobile phones ever come into conflict with mininotebooks for the same market segment or will these two products continue to build on different roads?

If I were to speculate, unless some radical innovation will merge the two distinct products into one with the same appeal for both market segments, distinct market segments will continue to develop for users that want a PC / mobile phone on the go (like iPhone), a cheap mininotebook for the go (whenever needed, like Asus EeePC) or a smart mininotebook for regular use (like Vaio series).