Nokia Netbook (Rumor)

After yesterday’s joint Intel/Nokia announcement where not a lot was said, the web is now buzzing about a possible Nokia Netbook that would be manufactured by Taiwanese contract manufacturers Quanta and Compal.

The word on the street is that the Nokia-branded Netbook would arrive late this year, which basically means that they would be using current technology, namely Atom, although an Arm-powered version also in the works, apparently.

Now, the real question is: “what OS will power the devices?”. Most customers want Windows in a Netbook. Nokia and Intel both support several flavors of Linux, and so far, the open-source OS had a very limited success in that space. Most likely, Nokia would build such devices to partner with wireless carriers in some sort of bundled package. Nokia might also want to leverage its strong brand in developing countries with Netbooks.