If you are in the netbook or MID business and haven’t looked through the Intel IDF content catalogue yet, do so now. Download relevant PDFs before they are gone because they contain some real information gems.

For example, IDG are predicting that the netbook market will reach over 30m units in 2011 rising to 45m in 2012 and that the netbook market will represent just 15% of the overall market for laptops (staying steady at 15% from 2009 until 2012 at least.

Or how about that the average netbook price in the US is way lower, at just over $300, than anywhere else in the world where prices are nearer to $400.

On Linux, Intel says that it will DROP in market share between 2008 and 2012 with Windows 7 taking the lions share. That doesn’t stoke much confidence in Moblin does it!

Western Europe is currently the biggest netbook market at over 2x shipments compared to the US.

Source: SF09_MPTS007 (via the Content catalog.)

There are some interesting stats about users and buyers too. 85% of netbooks are bought for one’s own use and that person is in their mid-30s. Internet surfing is the most common use with video streaming coming in at a tiny percent of usage (2%)

Source: SF09_MPTS008 (via the Content catalog.)

There’s a nice set of study data too. Did you know that most smartphone, MID, laptop and netbook usage sessions are under 5 minutes long and that 70% of active time was to social-related applications?

78% of usage is through the browser.

Source: SF09_RESS008 (via the Content catalog.)

Other interesting presentations to check out:

Intel’s Next Generation System-On-a-Chip (CETS003) – Find out about the CE4100 Atom processor targeted at IPTV applications. Interesting items: CivX certifications, jpeg decode acceleration, 1080p acceleration and more.

Mobile PC Power Sources: Li-Ion Battery Technology (EBLS003) In interesting presentation that will bring you up to date about what’s happening in the real world of Li-Ion technology. (My notes here)

Check out the set of MID-related presentations too. SF09_MIDS005 talks about the telephony stack and the SNRLabs connection management software that will be in Moblin 2.1 for handhelds.

On the Moblin side of things, at least take the time to check out MOBS001 which has an excellent diagram showing the breakdown of developers across mobile platforms and how Moblin will span MIDs, netbooks, nettops, auto and embedded markets. Did you know that gesture support is planned for 2.1, that sync and sensor support is planned for V2.2 and that later versions in the 2011 and 2012 timeframe should support intelligent multi-screen, multi-touch and context-aware software? Check out the Moblin roadmap.

There are other presentations about cloud computing, turbo-boost technology, Moorestown (my analysis here) and I’ve listed some more recommended sessions here.

If the links above don’t work, you can find the downloads on the IDF 2009 Content Catalog

Here’s the new Viliv S10 ‘Blade’ convertible touchscreen netbook.

Great build quality and looks. Certainly better than my Gigabyte Touchnote!

Available before the end of the year.

I’ve had a chance to play with the Archos 9 for a while since testing it out at the IDF Mobility Meeting. Here’s a presentation video. Images of the device from the testing session are available in the UMPCPortal gallery.

Full specifications and links to other Archos 9 articles here.

IDF is nearly here and it’s traditionally the most important week of the Mobile Computing calendar so watch closely because we’ll be getting information on some of the most important technologies that go together to build leading-edge mobile computing and mobile internet solutions. Battery technology, radio technology, graphics, CPUs and of course, software.

MIDs, Moblin, Menlow and Moorestown. In the mobile computing arena, these are the 4 keywords you should expect to hear a lot of next week and I’ll be there as an ‘Insider’ to bring you all the important news, to analyze what it means for mobile computing devices of 2010, to interview some of the major players and to seek out new hardware and devices that we could see hitting the market in Q4.

Read the full story