According to the DigiTimes, Acer is putting some serious thought into releasing a “low-power and low-cost 1-liter nettop” at the beginning of 2009. A nettop is a mini-PC, practically the desktop equivalent of a netbook, making them brother and sister if you will (though they may argue over which one is the female, but being smaller, the netbook might have to concede). To the right is a photo of a skinned ASUS Eee Box, a nettop in development, certainly an eye-catcher.

Together as small, energy-efficient and low-cost devices, netbooks and nettops are considered emerging threats to the established “names” such as Microsoft, HP, and Dell, and according to Wikipedia, the International Data Corporation has predicted that sales could shoot up from 500,000 in 2007 to 9,000,000 in 2012.

The DigiTimes writes, “Since Acer expects Aspire one netbook shipments to surpass its goal of 12-13 million units in 2009, to prevent the nettop from impacting the company’s Atom processor supply, Acer is considering using processors from VIA Technologies or AMD, but will still leave the Intel Atom as a possible option.“.

Acer is considering three manufacturers to make the nettop – Quanta Computer, Wistron and Micro-Star International (MSI) – and are expected to make a decision in December. If that decision is a “yes”, Acer’s nettop will target both enterprise and consumer markets, and will be able to connect to a TV and LCD monitor.