I’ve just heard from the Zonbu folks this morning and they let me know that as of today Zonbu is releasing a notebook version of their low power, environmentally friendly desktop.

COMPUTER hardware manufacturers obviously feel there’s a large untapped market among the world’s young: Witness, the Eee, the Cloudbook, the One. These mini-laptops – and there’s a new one announced every week – have three major things in common: They’re cheap, they’re aimed at schoolkids and students, and they run Linux operating systems.

Face it, now that the dam has broken with the OLPC, the EEE PC and now the prospect of Everex’s Cloudbook coming out in January at CES, Microsoft is really feeling the heat from Linux in this market. It also doesn’t help that people have reacted to Microsoft’s UMPC hardware offering with either loathing, disbelief ($1100 for THAT?!) or just plain ignored it.

The $279 Zonbu Notebook is the latest offering from the Open Source computer company—following up on the $99 Zonbu Desktop released earlier this year. The software is the same OS seen on the desktop, updated with a few new features such as real time data syncing. But the question remains: Does Zonbu find the sweet spot between solid performance and an entry level price?

3K Computer is shipping a $300 ultra-mini PC notebook that runs "Genuine CE" Linux distribution from a 4GB SSD (solid-state disk). 3K's RazorBook 400-Mini-Notebook uses a 32-bit RISC-based processor from Chinese processor start-up Ingenic.

It's a threat Microsoft can't let stand: the entire third world learning Linux as children, and growing up to use it. And Microsoft is going to get its way. It comes after a sudden wave of SCO-like problems for the OLPC project. A specious patent lawsuit over keyboards. Board-member Intel thrown out of the project for attempting to convince national governments to drop OLPC purchases and go with its own (Windows) product. First, OLPC is shown what its problems will be if it doesn't cooperate with Microsoft. Then, Microsoft approaches with money and technical help - you just have to run Windows to get it.

The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project and Microsoft Corp. are working together to develop a dual-boot system to put both Linux and Windows on laptops aimed at kids in developing countries, the head of OLPC said in an interview Tuesday.

Zonbu GNU/Linux is a new, environmentally-friendly, compact PC available from Zonbu. It includes some features that really make it stand out from other PCs. Last, but not least, it comes with GNU/Linux. In this article, I will give you some of the highlights and thoughts of my experience with Zonbu.

A little over a week ago I received my Zonbu Notebook. Since reviewing their tiny, silent desktop replacement computer I’ve been interested in Zonbu and their business model. Could they really pull of the subscription model with inexpensive computers? I’ve long held that in the next ten to fifteen years the majority of computers will be inexpensive blocks handed out to anyone who wants one in exchange for subscribing to some sort of service – be it connectivity, online storage or even gaming.