"I doubt very much that anyone was actually looking for a new
name, certainly not Intel, the company selling the chips to power
these machines, which actually coined the term. This is after all a
hardware issue and the last I looked Microsoft doesn't actually
make PCs, but why should that stop them from trying to force an
entire industry to bow to their considerable will.
"Even if the Netbook industry were looking for a new name, I'm
pretty sure it wouldn't be from the succinct "Netbook" to the
mouthful of "Low cost small notebook PC." Sure, that rolls off the
tongue and should make the folks who write the marketing copy very
happy.