Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, Acer Chairman and CEO J.T. Wang said his company will continue to make netbooks.

"They aren't dead," Wang said. "How could they be dead?"

shows that even if Netbooks have yet to met their end, they're bleeding out. According to IDC, U.S. netbook sales have steadily dropped from 2.3 million units in Q1 2010 to about 800,000 units in Q4 2011. Netbooks have seen a bit of growth in Latin America, Central Europe, the Middle East, and Africa during that time, but worldwide, netbook sales are sliding.

Other PC makers have already abandoned ship. Toshiba says it's in the United States. Dell says it's in the consumer space. Lenovo has on its Website, though it continues to use the netbook name for slightly larger, more expensive laptops.

The most damning condemnation comes from Asus, which pioneered the netbook category with its Eee PC line five years ago, but has since decided to stop making them. In a recent meeting with investors, Asus CEO Jerry Shen said the netbook can be said to have completed its life's mission from 2007 to 2012, according to the Journal.