Now, the majority of PC OEMs have shifted focus away from the low-margin netbook toward more profitable media tablets. See:

The remaining netbook vendors are focused on educational deployments as a learning tool.

Both OLPC and Intel's Classmate PC partners continue to promote the use of technology within classroom settings all over the globe.

More than 15 million netbooks are expected to ship worldwide this year.

"Latin America has already taken advantage of the netbook opportunity, while the Eastern European markets are ramping deployments," adds Orr.