From Register Hardware

First Gartner and now IDC has highlighted the rise of the Small, Cheap Computer as one of key product categories keeping the European PC market afloat.

Laptops too are helping keep vendors’ heads above water, and together with the SCCs helped shipments of all types of personal computer grow 27 per cent year on year during Q3, IDC said.

Notebook shipments were up 52 per cent when comparing Q3 2008 with Q3 2007. SCC shipment growth can’t really be considered since the first one, the Eee PC 701, didn’t go on sale until Q4 2007, and up to that point the only alternative, the UMPC, didn’t really trouble the score-keeper.

We can say that European netbook shipments went from zero in Q3 2007 to over 2m in Q3 2008, a figure that’s just under ten per cent of the 27.9m PCs shipped into Europe in Q3 this year.

This is a good illustration of the Law of Unintended Consequences. All of this NetBook activity dates from the appearance of the OLPC.