ASUS Planning Chromebook Products for Availability in Q4 2013

Remember netbooks? ASUS hopped on that bandwagon early and rode it out till the end, establishing itself as one of the premier netbook participants with its Eee PC line. The baton has been passed, however, and in place of netbooks, Chromebooks are filling a niche for low-cost notebooks that are serviceable for basic computing tasks like surfing the web, farting around Facebook, and even some productivity chores (think: Google Docs).

The transition from netbook to Chromebook isn't one that's gotten past ASUS, as the Taiwanese PC maker fully intends to enter the fray, perhaps by the end of the year. So says Digitimes, which itself heard from its sources within the upstream supply chain that ASUS believes there will be demand from the IT market and education industry for Chromebooks.

Asus Chromebook

It's taken some time for ASUS to embrace the Chromebook movement, and that's because the company wasn't sure there would be enough demand to justify diving in. At this point, however, it's pretty clear that Chromebooks are here to stay for a spell. ASUS also decided to join the Chromebook movement to help bolster overall notebook sales, as shipments have dropped recently.