Great points, Carl. I would take it a step further.
Apple is pushing the movie industry to Internet downloads. This coupled with Apple TV shows that Apple is bypassing HD DVDs. No need to have them sitting around, getting scratched, taking up space. Apple is about elegance. The MBA and ATV are a shot across the bow of business as usual in the entertainment industry. Let's just see if they can capitalize on it.
Form trumps feature set. Its about time the industry at large wakes up to this fact. IMHO, the MacBook Air is cheap.
Many-if not most-road warriors, and nearly all fashion/design/hospitality honchos will also need to run virtualized Windows on Air's 2GB of RAM. Expect to find more than a few MBAs bent in half and left on the floor of airport club lounges.
The fashion industry must be a large market in the US. Meanwhile, for the rest of the world, there's the Asus Eee PC, thank God. Only time will tell, but my guess is this thing will be as successful as the Cube or first Apple TV was -- hardly a failure, but not spectacular, either.
"This coupled with Apple TV shows that Apple is bypassing HD DVDs."
The whole WORLD has taken a pass on HD DVD. But, I agree with you: Apple SEEMS to be "going slow" on Blu Ray to get people thinking more about downloading content.
"for the rest of the world, there's the Asus Eee PC"
Dinky screen. My downloaded movies would look better on a MacBook Air on my transAtlantic flight!
It's for road warriors, guys, from fashion designers down to lowly sales reps.
The MBA will run virtualised Winodws just fine, my early07 grade Macbook, with Paralleles and 2Gig Ram - does so with ease. I spend a lot of time travelling between New Zealand and Japan: 10hr flights, hotels, motels, conferences and cafes - the MBA will be my next notebook for sure...
Carl ... good analysis on the fashion angle.
something else to consider ... new niche products from apple often also give us a glimpse to features in future apple products.
the cube is often derided as a failure (and for apple financially it was), however it wasn't that much later after the cube's demise that we saw the lampshade imac and look at what a success the imac has been since then.
macbooks and macbook pros are the best laptops out there today, but the MBA really whets our appetite for the next generation MBs and MBPs - i imagine they will be smaller, run longer and include gesture based trackpads.
You make some really valid points. I believe the Macbook Air should be marketed more for style than actual usefulness.
HAHAHAHAHAHHA
Nice satire. Very nice.
Yes it will sell with the fashion conscious, as it is the only game in town.
But that is not the target market, as you well know.
Apple will sell a brazilian of them.
The market Carl is talking about might not be the largest one, but it makes the trends, it makes things visible, it makes things desirable.
Apple is not going in markets from the bottom. They create a trend first. MBA is just about that.
As I've posted on other forums, the MacBook Air meets my needs. My WiFi network is extensive. I plug my MacBook into the ethernet once a year at most. It's not a big demand for me. In fact, I've been doing Time Machine over the WiFi network for months. As for USB ports, I can think of only one time when I needed two USB ports. One suffices. 2GB of ram is more than enough for word processing, web design, email, and internet browsing. I place a DVD into the drive almost as infrequently as I plug my MacBook into the ethernet. I download my movies. Have done so for years.
Am I disappointed that there is no firewire? Sure. I can't hook my camcorder up to the MacBook Air, but then how much editing did I think would be done on those tiny, slow iPod drives? I just wish they had opted for the 160GB ones, but then weight and power consumption were probably considerations.
I don't understand all the kvetching I'm hearing about this machine. I say for $200 more buy a MacBook Pro with all the features you're whining about. But if you want a light, slim, almost cardboard thin notebook with a sleek design, backlit keys, and state of the art UI with multitouch, then the MacBook Air has certain appeal, even if you don't design pants for a living. And did I mention it was light? That means a lot to me at the end of the day. My shoulder will thank me.
I was looking into buying a MacBook Pro within the upcoming months, but Apple replaced my faulty iBook with a brand new MacBook so I'm good for a while, but when I do take the plunge (my daughter is quite miffed she didn't inherit the iBook) I'll be buying the MacBook Air.
~Douglas
☆ The Splintered Mind - Overcoming Neurological Disabilities With Lots Of Humor And Attitude
Just a reminder to skeptics that Apple ditched the floppy years before any other company and I heard all the same stories about my lack of connectivity etc etc.
I never had any problems.
Nothing new - Sony's done it in the Windows world for some time now (10 years since the first super slim 505 came out). They haven't been as consistent as Apple through all their products, but the market for fashion conscious laptops (with some slight feature limitation) is well established - but it's not in the millions, unfortunately. So if Apple only can taraget those exact executives you speak of, the MBA will be a failure. But it's not just them - lots of wanna be "cool" people in the world 
2008 is the first year in which my company runs entirely on web applications, rather than "installed software", on on that basis an ultra-lightweight machine would be really, really useful.
Sure, an Air wouldn't let me edit videos as well as the fire-breathing beast I'm typing this on... but I already own a machine more than capable of doing that, and I won't be selling it just because I get an Air.
My ONLY complaint about the Air is that, living in London, England, it would be cheaper for me to fly to NYC, buy one there, and stay overnight, than it would be to get one in a UK Apple Store.
Oh, and for the record, an Air would cost more than my suit, but less than I spend on books in the average year.
Commenting by HaloScan
