Netbooks accelerate The Cloud?

The move to "netbooks" and other always connected devices seems to finally be here to stay - it's been talked for a while, but the convergence of technology and economics to make it a reality is now with us.
There is a very interesting article in Wired (if I remember well) that chronicles the "strange" history of the new generation of "netbooks": how something that was created to address the needs of those who cannot afford the current laptops ended up filling a real need even amongst those who are the target of these current laptops. Essentially, we have reached the point in which these tools are becoming appliances, judged more by the function they actually fulfil than by the performances they can exhibit regardless of our need for them.

Combined with the emergence of The Cloud, this shift promises a change in the way all of us, consumers and enterprises, will interact with applications. It seems obvious, but the trend is accelerating. Applications will be at least partially on The Cloud, they will be multi-device, multi-access, asynchronous.

That will bring a series of challenges to us, software architects. We will need to make The Cloud ensure the viability of the model for complex, long lived, IP rich, confidential, secure flows. We will need to make the asynchronous models work well. We will need to make the user interfaces multi-device and secure, etc...
One proof this is moving forward, and fast, is that companies such as Microsoft, which do not create trends but make them mainstream, are getting there. The Azure effort (http://www.microsoft.com/azure/) is well known, but they are thinking across the board on user interfaces, on new browser (the window to The Cloud) architecture approaches (http://research.microsoft.com/pubs/79655/gazelle.pdf).

It will also bring challenges to the business models for software products, of course. The current models are not adapted, and it will take time before a norm gets established.
It will also bring new security needs: big cloud centers will need to be protected against all sorts of attacks, cyber and physical, etc.

Interesting disruption.