Santa Clara, California-based Intel has had several product releases this year, but there's one that stands out from all of them as one of the company's most successful products ever. The Atom processor has taken the market by storm, bringing a serious contribution to the adoption of the small-sized, low-power portable computer, also known as the netbook. The success level achieved by the Atom was considerable, so much so that almost every major PC vendor out there decided to come out with a system that was powered by this small form-factor CPU.

Intel managed to lower the effects of the global economic crisis, mainly due to its strong Atom sales. The success rate of the processor is obvious when you think that it is now at the basis of almost every netbook system on the market. Companies such as Acer, ASUS, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, Toshiba and others are currently offering netbook systems that are powered by the aforementioned processor unit. What is even more impressive is that the main difference between all of these devices is that they provide a different exterior design.

The Atom wasn't the only major release this year, as Intel further upped the ante by introducing one of its highest-anticipated products, the Nehalem-based Core i7 processor. Along with the company's new X58 desktop platform, the new processing unit managed to raise the performance bar, thus putting another nail in AMD's coffin, which is yet to come up with a product that could seriously compete with Intel's range of desktop processors.

Intel has undoubtedly had a good 2008, to say the least, enjoying a level of success that is expected to continue in the upcoming year. That's mostly because of the expected successors to the Atom processor and the fact that Atom-based devices can now take advantage of a new and more powerful chipset, provided by NVIDIA, with its recently introduced ION platform. Netbooks are expected to provide support for Windows Vista and even the future Windows 7, while also delivering interesting features such as touchscreen capabilities.