Asus Eee PCs Will Arrive in September

Asustek Computer, better known on the computer hardware market after its brand name of Asus, is one of the first tier hardware manufacturers and vendors in the world renowned for its mainboards and graphics cards. The company is in the laptop and notebook manufacturing business, but it never directly competed with the dedicated mobile computing manufacturers like Lenove, HP and Dell.

Apart from its already present line of mobile offerings, after many rumors and the like, Asus is finally going to launch its line of mini notebooks, the Eee PC family. The launch is due for the middle of September and Asus plans to release the Eee PC simultaneously to clients in the US, Europe, China as well as Taiwan, according to the news site DigiTimes. The September round of shipments is targeted at around 20,000 units, so Asustek Computer may very well test the mobile computing market before launching a big number of machines.

Apart from orders originating in the developed countries that are targeted at end users, Asus is said to have secured some orders from education organizations (competing with OLPC's XO and Intel's Classmate PC) and various companies as well as emerging markets. As the notebook supply chain is already tight, Asus is very concerned about the availability of a number of key hardware parts like hard disk drives and LCD panels.

The Asus Eee PCs will come in three different flavors, meaning different models. The cheapest one will go for around $199, while the medium level Eee PCs will sell for $239 and the high end notebooks will be priced at around $349 and $369. sources from the manufacturing company said that only the $349 model will be launch in quantity as the first round of shipments. The technical specifications of the Asus Eee PC are very close to those of a traditional notebook, so market research firms may consider updating Asustek Computer's market share of the notebook market segment. While the first round of Eee PC are expected to reach only half a million units for this year, the number is expected to stabilize somewhere between 3 million and 5 million units in 2008.