Big box retailer Walmart already sells a handful of netbooks including the Acer Aspire One and HP 2133 Mini-Note. But according to DigiTimes, Asus and Walmart are expected to announce a deal to start selling Eee PC laptops through the store soon.
This probably doesn’t mean much for US netbook enthusiasts, since Walmart charges about the same rate for netbooks as everyone else. But it does mean wider exposure for mini-laptops, since customers wandering the aisles will now see cheap ulrtaportables from Acer and Asus (I wouldn’t be surprised if that HP 2133 is only available online).
via Engadget
I think that Asus will be a minor player in the Netbook game in a year, and possibly out of the gam entirely in a year and a half. They had everything going for them in the beginning but they don’t know how to handle success.
They have 13 different Netbooks models on their US website. The models are named and arranged more or less randomly. They need to have three or four models: one 7 inch, one 9 inch, and two 10 inch. Any more than that and the public will turn away because of confusion. Who wants to buy a computer from a company that makes you look stupid vefore you even purchase a machine?