Eee PC shipments "fail expectations" for first half of 08

Welcome back to reality ASUS. The Taiwanese giant just announced that it shipped 1.7 million Eee PCs in the "first half of 2008," 300,000 less than had been forecasted. Of course, this could be explained in any number of ways including a downturn in the global economy and those consumers who skipped past the Eee PC 900 in favor of the Atom-based Eee PC 901. With Atom processors in short supply and ASUS diluting the Eee brand as much as they have, well, we wouldn't be surprised to see these failed expectations become the expectation moving forward; especially for companies like Acer who seem to be betting the farm on these new netbook-class mini-laptops.