Dual-core-based CPUs are going to remain on Intel's roadmap for longer than many expected. This is mainly because of the fact that it is very hard to write a real multi threaded code that can really use the benefits of more than two cores.

Intel is launching Quad-core notebooks for the upper price segment, but even in 2009 and probably 2010 and beyond there will be many dual-cores in notebook and desktop systems.

Nehalem dual-cores such as Havendale for desktop and Aburndale for notebook do support four threads with hyperthreading, and theoretically you would get some speed jumps by multi threading. These CPUs do come in the second half of 2009 and this implies that dual-core is here to stay, and remains dominant even in 2009.