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It’s not a breaking news anymore that Asus is going to distribute his brand new little toy – eeePC – starting from this September. The eeePC is a subnotebook, among the cheapest ones in its segment. It’s cheaper than the “smartphone companion” Palm Foleo, the Microsoft-driven nanobook and far cheaper than the UMPCs. It’s slightly more expensive than the “laptop for children” notebooks, but it will be offered worldwide as its design will appeal both the rich western countries looking for a light companion to fill the gap between smartphones and notebooks and the developing countries looking for an inexpensive solution to solve the digital divide issue. Starting at 199$, it’s going to shake the market as many of us will find out that to perform a number of common activities (email, web, photos etc.) a 199$ computer is more than enough. That’s of course possible thanks to a well featured linux OS, designed to fit the purpose. Actually I have already read bad news concerning price increases which would add 100$ to the final price, but let’s wait for the official figures from Asus, who’s planning to sell 500.000 worldwide next year! In the meantime, it’s nice to notice that Linux is getting more and more popular also in the consumer segment: Dell is widening its selection of products featuring Ubuntu as standard OS, Lenovo will sell laptops with Suse and HP will deliver hundreds of computers with Ubuntu for an Indian University. As Bob Dylan used to sing “times are a’changing”.