Although Microsoft Windows has been widely used on netbooks, this scenario could really change sooner than expected. PC makers who tried to reduce price on its netbooks offerings by shipping with Linux OS had not a success sales like the ones with consumer’s prefered Windows XP.
Android is a Linux-based OS developed by Google for use in mobile devices, primarily smart-phones. It includes an OS, middleware and some basic applications, and has a toolkit that developers can use to build other programs on top.
It’s not hard to see why computer makers might be interested, it’s actually quite simple. Android is free to use, which means they don’t have to pay a licence fee for Microsoft’s Windows OS, and it is open source, so they can customise it to build the types of products they need.
As reported earlier by Techworld.com, Industry analyst Roger Kay, president of Endpoint Technologies Associates, said Android’s web-centric design could lend itself well to buying new software on the web, in a similar model to Apple’s App Store. But he wondered whether Android is ready for use in netbooks. Moving an OS for mobile phones to netbooks is an ambitious plan and will present some challenges, he said. The idea of an Android-based notebook makes sense, but the OS has to show that it can be successful in smart-phones before it moves to another device, he said.
But consumer electronics makers are already looking to make the new OS part of other gadgets too, such as netbooks, digital photo frames and e-book readers. Hewlett-Packard has confirmed it is testing Android as an option for netbooks, and some enthusiasts have already loaded the OS on the devices. Acer announced Tuesday at Computex show in Taiwan a version of its Aspire One Netbook that will run the Android operating system. “Acer believes the Android operating system will contribute significantly to the worldwide Netbook market growth,” the company said in the statement. Likewise ECS showed off its first netbook with Google’s Android operating system due out in Q4 for under $500.