Dell Admits The Netbook Market Is Dead As A Doornail

The company has killed off its Inspiron Mini line of netbooks. It had previously killed its Dell Streak tablets.

The Inspiron Mini 1018 and the Mini 1012 netbook have been removed from the Dell Web site, just in time for the holiday shopping season. A sales representative told PC Magazine that no Dell Mini is currently for sale.

For its part, Dell will instead focus on products that are both bigger in size, and in profits. The company will steer would-be netbook buyers to one of three choices: the Inspiron family, the high-end XPS notebook, and the Alienware line.

During Microsoft's last earnings report, executives admitted that sales of Windows were sluggish thanks to a dying netbook market. Later, Microsoft Gavriella Schuster, general manager for Windows product management, came right out and admitted that tablets were to blame.

One tablet in particular is the culprit. Apple sold 11.1 million iPads during the calendar third quarter - a record for the tablet, and the holiday season hadn't even started yet.