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Here’s a press-stopper: “Cash-strapped consumers and an economy in recession and are bad news for sales of most products.”

 

But – you knew there was a “but” coming soon – that may not apply to netbooks, according to ABI Research principal analyst Philip Solis.  

 

Solis says several characteristics of the diminutive Web-oriented computers may actually work to their advantage in a depressed market: “Netbook sales may not be adversely affected – in fact may actually be helped – by the recessionary pressures.” There are three reasons for this, Solis says: “First, netbooks are a fairly new class of device, and widespread adoption has only recently begun. Second, they are relatively inexpensive, and some consumers may see them as a viable alternative to that pricey laptop they originally intended to buy. Finally, they can run inexpensive operating systems that don’t require powerful hardware.”

 

Take this reporter’s word for it – this column is produced for your entertainment on an Acer (News - Alert) Aspire 1 netbook. Well, with an exterior keyboard, mouse and large flat screen. The day somebody comes up with a netbook one can touch-type on with a decent mouse pad is the day we’re all waiting for.

 

Apple Inc. appears to be getting in on the action. As TMCnet reported here, the Chinese-language Commercial Times recently disclosed that Taiwan-based Wintek will supply touch panels for what appears to be a new netbook for the iPhone (News - Alert) maker, and that shipments will start in the third quarter this year.

 

Three out of every four netbooks shipped last year ran Windows XP as their operating system, but ABI officials find that even that’s changing: “While much recent media attention has been focused on the trend to beef up netbooks and make them more laptop-like (and more expensive), the more important change has been at the lower end of this market. To create a lower-cost device designers are turning to Linux, and, for netbooks with ARM processors, to any of several mobile device operating systems such as Android (News - Alert).”

The Achilles’ heel of XP as an OS for netbooks is that mobile OSs such as Android, Windows Mobile, and Maemo can still provide the core functionality required of a netbook, but at lower cost and with smaller storage and memory requirements. It’s Solis’s opinion that 2012 “will see the tipping-point at which netbooks running Linux-based and mobile operating systems outnumber those running Windows XP.”