Just in case, you’ve no idea of what Jolicloud is (I wrote about it in December 2008 “Introducing Jolicloud, Another Cloud Operating System Contender“), it’s an operating system for netbooks meaning that it is designed to work flawlessly with the portable, lightweight and not-so-powerful mini-laptops.

Now the question is: after almost three years of netbooks becoming mainstream and users getting used to Windows operating systems whether or not they work well on netbook computers, are current users ready for a revolutionary OS?

I guess that we will see but so far, the company’s Facebook Page has over 10 000 fans which is something for a company that’s been laying low all this time.

Not surprisingly, the whole demand for PC has spiraled downwards except for netbooks that are seeing an explosion in demand. But this demand comes at a cost for companies such as Intel and Microsoft who would rather sell their expensive products in normal laptops than cheaper variations in netbooks.

In our own netbook coverage, here are some of the items that Netbook Era mentioned this past week:

- Plenty pics of the Aspire One 10″ netbook

- A cute pink MSI Wind U100 netbook that is a good valentine Day gift 

- A more functional version of Jolicloud, the netbook operating system.

As usual, please subscribe to the RSS feed if you have not done so already. See you next week!

Jolicloud, the netbook operating system that I wrote about a few months ago, has improved since like you can see on the pic above. I like the fact that the developers brought a different yet familiar approach.

While it’s being praised by the top tech bloggers, there’s only one hurdle that Jolicloud faces and it’s not a small one: Microsoft’s operating systems like the forthcoming Windows 7. I really don’t think that this giant corporation will just let anyone fiddle with its lunch money!

See: Jolicloud’s Beautifully Designed Netbook Linux OS

Microsoft has just insured that it does not lose the netbook OS battle by confirming to CNET UK that it will offer a Windows 7 netbook edition. Netbooks have come out of nowhere to become heavily used computers but their low processing power require a minimal operating system. XP has been the choice so far beating Linux senseless and there a lot of players wanting in including Google (a few days ago, some people successfully ran Android on a netbook).

To learn more about the Windows 7 netbook edition, see: Confirmed: Windows 7 ‘netbook edition’

Update: What’s going on? I think we were either fed the wrong information or someone is backing away from original claims. See: Microsoft: We haven’t announced a netbook version of Windows 7

Update 2: Laptop Mag was able to load Windows 7 on a Samsung NC10 netbook. See: Windows 7 Beta Runs on Samsung NC10 for how it turned out.

Speaking of Acer, it was announced that they would release a new Gateway LT1001G netbook. Just in case you did not know, Acer bought out Gateway last year and so it’s normal that the Gateway LT1001G netbook has a striking resemblance to the Acer Aspire one netbooks.

A new way to get your hands on the Acer Aspire one mini laptop was unveiled. The deal is that you could get the ultraportable notebook for $99 but there was a catch. The deal, that is a Radio Shack offer, may actually not be that much of a bad idea (See: Why The Radioshack 3G Acer Aspire One Netbook Deal Almost Sucks).

An interesting netbook bag by Voltaic that also recharges your mini notebook was mentioned while we also heard of Jolicloud, a netbook operating system from Netvibes’ founder. The race for netbook operating systems is on and it’s no wonder that it was reported that Google’s Android could be seen in netbooks.

The Android operating system is usually found in smartphones but netbooks sell more than the iPhone according to figures that were released. Maybe that’s why Google is so interested in mini portable PCs. Netbook Era was rather annoyed at those “netbooks vs iPhone” reports because they were comparing two unrelated things.

The New York Times wrote a handy guide to SSD and how they relate to netbooks. One of the things they do is improve battery life. But it seems that an  Asus Eee PC 901 netbook  powered by a 10-cell battery was another way to extend battery life.

Naturally, a few predictions were made notably the fact that netbooks were going corporate in 2009 and that the future of these ultraportable notebooks was in 10″ models as the smaller sizes are just too impractical with their tiny screens and keyboards.

Quite a few netbook reviews were documented: Zepto A12, MSI Wind U100-483JP, Asus N10Jc-A1, Fujitsu Amilo Mini Ui 3520, ASUS N10J, Gigabyte M192 and the  Averatec 1000 netbooks.

Also, quite a few new netbooks or wannabe netbooks were written about: Alpha 400 MIPS, Gateway LT1001G, Axioo PICO DJM 616, Sony VAIO VGN-TT15GNR, Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 and the XDA Flint.

More handy guides were written on how to buy the best DJ netbook and about the best netbook ever. 

As usual, the deals were  in full prominence: HP Mini 1000, Acer Aspire One, LG X110, Lenovo IdeaPad S10, and the Dell Mini 9 netbooks.

And so, those were the highlights of the past week (7th-14th December 2008). Thanks for reading us, your number one netbook blog!

The race for the de facto standard operating system is on and all developers with interesting ideas should get into it. I can say that none of the big boys such as Microsoft, Google even Ubuntu will win it because they will try to customize their already existing offering to netbooks while smaller hence more flexible will totally create something new from scratch that takes into consideration the mini laptops’ features.

Jolicloud (Mr Krim’s latest venture) and Good OS are the two cloud operating systems that are garnering attention but in the next months, we can all expect to see new players and in about two years, one will dominate à la Google becoming king and making most of the money.