Intel's next installment to the Atom platform will be a benefit to mobile platforms everywhere. The Atom N450 and its new chipset are being packaged up as the Pine Trail platform, intended to succeed the N270 + 945GSE combination that is most popular now. Netbooks based on Pine Trail were shown during this year's Computex, when it was speculated that Intel would be intent on a launch this year, even as early as October.

A recent report from Digitimes indicates that many eager PC vendors are showing no progress towards that end, which could be a sign of Intel delaying the launch of the revamped Atom platform until sometime next year.

The speculated reasons for a delay include Intel not wanting to impact the netbook market for the remainder of 2009, most of which is composed of older-generation Atom hardware.