When Asus announced that they thought they would sell 300,000 Eee PC units in just the last few months of 2007, I was a bit skeptical. Sure, I think it's an awesome little machine, at a great price (even if does cost twice as much as many people had been hoping for). But given the choice between a small laptop with a funny interface, relatively slow processor and small amount of storage space and a full fledged PC for a few hundred bucks more, I figured most people would opt for the $500 or $600 laptops you can usually find on sale at your local Best Buy or Circuit City.

But it turns out Asus has managed to sell 350,000 machines since launching the Eee PC in limited markets in October and November. That puts Asus well on track to reach their goal of selling over 3 million units next year. You know, unless competition really heats up between the Eee PC, Everex Cloudbook, OLPC XO Laptop, and Intel Classmate PC. Some of these low cost computers will be available worldwide, while others are only intended for deployment in developing nations where they must be ordered in bulk. But if there's one thing Asus has done with the Eee PC, the company has shown that there's a huge demand in both the developed and developing world for low cost portable computers.