Reports of the 7 inch Eee PC’s demise were somewhat exagerrated

Last week DigiTimes ran an article detailing two bits of news from a recent Asus earnings call:

Asus would be phasing out its 7 and 8.9 inch netbooks
Asus would soon introduce a $200 netbook

If you found it strange that Asus would announce those two things at the same time, you weren’t the only one. Because as much as I’d like to see a $200 Eee PC with a 10 inch screen, I just don’t think it’s going to happen anytime soon. Well, not as soon as early 2009, when Asus is expected to introduce that new cheapo netbook.

Apparently Asus was surprised at the news too, because a spokesperson for the company told ZDNet that there are no plans to eliminate the smaller models from the Eee PC lineup. Apparently DigiTimes misquoted Asus CEO Jerry Shen in its original article. Which is a shame, because while DigiTimes isn’t above printing rumors from anonymous sources, it has a pretty good track record of publishing breaking (and accurate) news related to netbooks.