Despite the explosive growth of Netbooks and the dozens of companies that have decided to follow in Asustek's footsteps, not all hardware companies are keen on how far it can go. Dell, for instance, feels that Netbooks won't have a long lasting or even significant impact on the PC market. Or, at least, that's how Michael Dell feels. According to him, the form factor of Netbooks isn't a terribly large selling point and that most markets will stick to the current 14” and up laptops that are common today.

The Dell chief also says that managed services, not hardware, is where they foresee growth in the future. Hardware is a narrow-margin market, and he says that the “Netbook” phase will probably produce a situation in which it fills a niche for “secondary” PCs in developed nations, becoming primary PCs only for countries without a lot of access to cheap technology.

Most interesting was his comment on where they predict PC sales will go. He said that to follow PC sales, you simply look at mobile phone sales – where mobiles show up, PCs will show up a few years later. It seems logical, and is an interesting way of looking at how PCs will expand.