Having conquered the motherboard market years ago, Taiwan-based manufacturer Asus no longer sees PC peripherals as its only way to go for business growth. You may recall it was Asus who boosted netbooks to massive popularity with the introduction of the Eee PC. Now they are looking for more.

Earlier in the year Asus stated they were laying out a plan to become the third largest notebook maker in the global market by 2011. Most recently Asus' chairman, Jonney Shih was quoted in saying they are also considering an acquisition to jumpstart their current position. According to a report from the Commercial Times (via Digitimes), Shih disclosed that they are already in talks with Toshiba for a potential takeover or merger with their PC division.

Toshiba is currently the fifth largest notebook manufacturer worldwide, with HP, Acer, Dell and Lenovo taking the remaining top four spots. You may recall Lenovo was a little known company outside of China until they acquired IBM's PC division in 2005.