"Everything is shifting upwards quickly," said Philip Solis, an analyst at ABI Research Inc. "Netbooks are already very PC-like." ABI predicts that worldwide this year, more than double the 16 million ABI said shipped in 2008.

When success attacks

Along the way, they will likely continue to steal sales away from conventional laptops. Gartner Inc. says revenue from the during the key Christmas quarter, as sales of cheaper netbooks ate into laptop sales or forced vendors to cut prices on mainstream laptops.

Netbooks are also

That's one nightmare scenario that both Intel and Microsoft tried to avoid when it sought to co-opt the rising netbook phenomenon, but on their own terms.