VIA and nVidia Getting Out of Netbook Business?

I’m not sure how to read this, exactly, because it may be easier to overstate what is actually happening. Remember VIA and how I keep mentioning their Nano? The Nano is their CPU that actually puts up a fight against the Atom, and in many cases, eclipses it. Well, it’s been taking a long time for it to come out, and in light of HP dumping them for Intel, VIA’s netbook possibilities may be under fire.Earlier this year, VIA and nVidia had entered into an agreement to work on developing a netbook platform, but with VIA’s business slowly slipping away it’s looking like they’re going to be going another way with their netbook platform, which is to say, nowhere.

They had previously agreed to work together and develop a netbook platform around the VIA Nano and the nVidia GeForce 9400M. If the nVidia GeForce 9400M sounds familiar, that’s because it’s the onboard graphics card that’s now in almost every Apple notebook and blows Intel’s onboard video performance out of the water.

The Nano, coupled with the 9400M in a netbook could have been a very compelling platform that offered users a hell of a lot more power and possibilities that we currently don’t have so long as we’re stuck with the Atom and the crappy GMA950 or whatever it is (seriously, I dislike it so much (and hate their naming scheme so much) that I can’t be bothered to remember if that’s the correct name or not — put simply, I want it to go away because it’s hamstringing netbooks and nettops).

Oh well, they’re going to continue to work on some sort of desktop platform, so here’s my official hope/prediction (more hope): VIA Nano based nettop with nVidia GeForce 9400M. Where do I buy one?

Get the rest of the details on this bummer for netbooks at Electronista.