Because Intel freaked and pushed everyone over to ATOMs where as the early EEEPCs etc had used discount celerons. Basically Intel feared that the netbooks plus

Because Intel freaked and pushed everyone over to ATOMs where as the early EEEPCs etc had used discount celerons. Basically Intel feared that the netbooks plus citrix would strangle the lucrative ultraportable market segment. At the same time MS gave Windows XP another stay of execution just to have a Windows option to offer OEMs (Vista was just too darn bulky). Thing is that XP, or more correctly the version of the Windows Update version it used, had a flaw where it would grow slower and slower over time as it tried to enumerate all the patches on each boot.