Intel, Asus Announce $199 'Eee PC'
TAIPEI — Asus and Intel have teamed up to develop a $199 notebook PC, the companies announced here on Tuesday. — In a keynote address given by Sean Maloney, an executive vice president at Intel and chief marketing and sales officer, Jonney Shih …
Context & Ripple Effects
At Computex Taipei, Asus chairman Jonney Shih joined Intel EVP Sean Maloney on stage to confirm what Maloney's keynote had been building toward: a $199 notebook PC developed jointly under the Eee PC name, with Intel's latest chipsets unveiled alongside it.
The pairing matters because it is a chipmaker-plus-OEM structure rather than either acting alone — Intel supplying silicon and marketing muscle for a price point well below its usual notebook partners' territory, and Asus lending its manufacturing scale. The joint development effort was confirmed on stage, putting both companies' names behind a machine aimed at buyers mainstream notebooks had priced out.
First-order effects
- Buyers gain a $199 notebook option from a major brand, with Asus responsible for the hardware design and Intel's new chipsets powering it.
- Intel immediately gains a flagship showcase for those chipsets in a segment — sub-$200 laptops — that its premium notebook lineup does not address.
Second-order effects
- Other notebook makers are pushed to answer a $199 price anchor from a top-tier manufacturer, compressing margins across the entry-level laptop market rather than leaving it to niche vendors.
- Retailers and distributors get a new low-cost shelf category to stock, which pressures them to renegotiate assortment around machines that sell at a fraction of conventional notebook prices.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, the notebook market splits into full-price machines and cheap companion devices co-engineered by chipmakers and OEMs — with Intel's chipset roadmap and Asus's product line both expanding around that split, as early signals like a larger-screen variant and desktop spin-offs suggest.
The trend: PC economics are shifting toward ultra-low-cost notebooks designed jointly by silicon vendors and manufacturers, pulling a new buyer tier into the laptop market.