Jonney Shih - Agenda Setters 2008

Name: Jonney Shih

Title: Asus CEO

Position: 31    Last year: Not ranked

Why? Starting the netbook craze

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• Richard Stallman
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• Neelie Kroes

Jonney Shih, CEO of PC and graphics card maker Asus, earns an Agenda Setters nod for transforming the laptop market and making hardware more affordable and more mobile.

Asus' Eee PC - a very small, very cheap laptop - arguably kickstarted the whole commercial netbook craze last summer. A year on and manufacturers are tripping over themselves to offer handbag-sized laptops at bargain prices. The devices could even end up giving smart phones a run for their money.

The netbook concept was no doubt inspired by Nicholas Negroponte's One Laptop Per Child project to bring low-cost machines to school kids in the developing world. But, as one panellist points out, Asus took OLPC's device as a starting point and created a fully functional commercial PC with affordability written all over it - thereby "forcing the whole laptop market to respond".

Asus' decision to ship its Eee with a Linux OS was also a bold step away from Windows - one that has inspired other laptop makers to follow suit, bringing change and innovation to the mobile PC market.