Netbooks ready for business

In just one year, mini-notebooks or `netbooks' have come a very long way and are now ready to take on dedicated roles in the smart small business workplace, according to news.com.au.

Some call them netbooks, others mini-notebooks, but this new style of portable computer - generally in the 7-inch to 11-inch screen size range - has rapidly gained prominence in the computer marketplace.

First targeted to student users, the idea has caught on in the mainstream. The netbook should now be considered a serious contender as a dedicated device for out-of-office business needs.

In a Wall Street Journal Business Technology blog post, author Ben Worthen noted that a survey of CIOs found that companies will forgo traditional three-year replacement cycles for desktop machines (desktops and notebook computers), reports CIO India.

According to the survey, 46% of businesses will defer replacing machines for the next year or two.

Worthen says this will be a problem for people who are already suffering from overloaded machines. “I'm not so sure about that. Any machine purchased in the past three years should be capable of holding at least 2GB of memory, which should be plenty for most people's workloads.”

In an unlikely union of technologies, PC retailer Eurocom has said it will ship laptops powered by Intel's Core i7 processor, which the chip maker has dubbed the "fastest processor on this planet", PCWorld reports.

The Eurocom D900F Phantom i7 will include Intel's Nehalem-based quad-core Core i7 chips, which are typically put in servers and high-end gaming desktops.

The laptops will ship on 1 May, according to the Canadian PC retailer's Web site.