The rise of the netbook in the past 18 months has been phenomenal. From a standing start in 2007, 21 million units are expected to ship globally this year, up 79.5% year-on-year, according to analysts at Gartner.

The main engine for growth among consumers is flagged up by the device's name. By moving computing power and applications off the desktop and onto the internet - with the rise of cloud computing - there is less need for a sophisticated PC operating system and powerful hardware to run it.

Another growth driver among consumers has been the use of Solid State Drives (SSD) which, while limited in size, are lighter than traditional hard disks and potentially more robust.

However, the netbook's business uses are still unclear. Rather than being an alternative to traditional notebooks, their lack of computing power makes it more likely they will be used as second machines for everyday mobile tasks. The low-cost devices are proving popular with small companies for the same reasons as with consumers but larger companies are still in the experimental stage.

In all likelihood, the only issue that threatens to derail netbook usage in businesses is security, with naysayers claiming vendors haven't integrated the necessary security software into the devices to make them business friendly. But even that isn't an insurmountable problem - smartphones faced similar concerns when they launched, but are now seen as a must-have for mobile workers.

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Illustration: Raymond Beisinger