14 DAY TRIAL // The netbook market is expanding at an incredible pace, as we hear of more companies planning to launch their own netbook designs in the upcoming months. Nokia, the world's leading manufacturer of mobile phones and smartphones, is expected to make its debut in the fast-growing industry for small-sized, low-power portable computer systems that will likely compete in the netbook market.
According to a recent news article on Digitimes, Nokia is expected to begin talks with Taiwan-based Elitegroup Computer Systems (ECS) for the development of the company's first netbook device. The article cites the Chinese-language “Economic Daily News” (EDN), according to which the negotiations between ECS and Nokia are expected to begin later this quarter, which could suggest that Nokia's netbook system could become available by the end of this year.
ECS will also be manufacturing netbooks for Far EasTone, a Taiwan-based telecom provider that could start shipping its own FET-branded netbooks in the second or third quarter of this year. The initial volume for the upcoming FET-branded netbook is said to be of a few thousand units.
As for Nokia's own netbook, details are scarce, despite a series of recent rumors indicating the release of such a device. However, Nokia's foray into the market for personal computer systems could come as a much required change, providing users with some configuration differences and a new way to understand the computing experience. Unfortunately, at this time we have no specific details as to how Nokia's machine will look like.
Currently, the netbook market is dominated by devices that are powered by the same Intel Atom processor and run on Microsoft's Windows XP operating system. Nokia, as well as other companies, could start shipping netbooks that are based on ARM processors and will run on Linux-based operating systems, such as the Google Android, an OS that was mainly developed for smartphones.