Posted on 06/03/2009 8:10:33 AM PDT by bamahead
Google's free mobile-phone operating system will begin running computers next quarter, entering a market dominated by Microsoft's Windows and deepening the rivalry between the two companies.
Acer, the world's second-largest laptop maker, will release a low-cost notebook featuring Android in the third quarter, Jim Wong, head of information-technology products at the Taipei, Taiwan-based company, said Tuesday.
Asustek Computer, pioneer of the sub-$500 laptops known as netbooks, also developed a model that runs on Google's software, Chairman Jonney Shih said.
The development of Android netbooks indicates that the software is powerful enough to replace Windows, which runs about 90 percent of the world's personal computers. Google's move into PC operating systems escalates the pressure on Microsoft as it prepares to introduce Windows 7, according to Calvin Huang, an analyst at Daiwa Securities Group.
"This is a negative and may force Microsoft to lower the price of Windows 7," said Huang, who covers the computer industry from Taipei. "More and more vendors are adopting Android and non-Windows in their products, so this is a very good chance for Android to penetrate the PC market."
Acer's Android-based Aspire One netbook will be cheaper than the Windows XP model, though the two products will have the same electronic components, such as Intel's Atom processor, Acer's Wong said.
"Competition in the marketplace is good and people have the right to choose software that is best for them," Amelia Agrawal, a Singapore-based spokeswoman for Microsoft, said in an e-mailed statement. "Microsoft remains confident that people will keep buying Windows, as evidenced by the robust Windows growth on small notebook PCs."
(Excerpt) Read more at seattletimes.nwsource.com ...
It is not very fault tolerant on a phone. My phone is constantly rebooting itself for no reason. It seems mostly like a resource issue when it happens. I could see it running a bit better on a laptop.
ping
The mac OS already runs on the iphone. Pretty much.
Choosing whether to root for Google or Microsoft is like choosing whether to be eaten by the shark or the crocodile/
BWAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
lol
Fear is the thing most likely holding anyone,especially businesses from reliance and dependency on Microsoft.
I expect the Asian/African/South American market to be more likely to opt for alternates that allow them to minimize computing costs.
LOL! "Just about anything" being the key phrase.
A Linux-based platform for mobile devices.
Why anyone would try to supersede classical Linux (Ubuntu, etc.) for quasi-mobile applications like laptop computers is beyond me. Windows is more purpose-built to the task.
Most of those people software needs are easily met by linux(or were met years ago by simpler computers and OSes.)
I submit that most workers have XP and Office solely due to standardization.
Companies that use process-control software are even more reluctant than consumers to move to the new version of Windows each time.I've seen that while working at a very large international soap/personal products company and at an international chemical and plastics corporation.The former took two YEARS of in-house testing before switching to Windows 95;as I remember,Win 98 was being released as the company was installing Win95 in place of Win 3.11 !The latter has yet to install Vista and still uses WinXP Pro with some systems still running Win2K and even NT 4.0
That sales pitch has been resurrected, dusted off and retold far too many times to EVER be believable again.
...at least for me.
Microsoft: "All your old DOS application will integrate seamlessly with Windows 3.1!"
IBM: "All your old Windows applications will integrate seamlessly with OS/2!"
Linux: "All your current Windows applications will integrate seamlessly using Wine!"
(Yes, there's some exaggeration in there, but the pitch is essentially the same...)
Is Android a new OS from the ground up, or is it (like Linux and Apple) some type of Unix variant?
Linux is Pretty Great Stuff but it is wild and wooly. PCs evolved to Windows standards. For something to come after the fact and try to stretch across all that hardware, with no reliance upon the Windows that started it all, is pretty audacious. It’s a blooming miracle that Linux has as much RAMshare as it does.
If google releases a cheap, DRM-free OS, they will take the market share that Apple should be taking if they would only lower their prices. Microsoft is compromised and vulnerable right now. I have no idea why Apple doesn’t want that market, but apparently, it doesn’t.
Well there are some things it doesn't do as well....like catch Viruses and other Malware.....
I was an early adopter of the open source G1 Android phone (see my FR home page), and after 6 months of use, have nothing but good things to say about it. My experience is that the OS is fast and very stable. And the applications offered by developers are many and varied, and very useful, most free. And more are coming online every day. I would consider nothing but an Android OS phone when I upgrade.
Also, Google keeps updating the OS in releases. A major release with many significant feature upgrades just came out, called “cupcake”. And another one is slated, called “donut”. And as with many phones, you don’t have to buy the latest expensive model to get the Android OS upgrade with the new features — they come over the air free to the existing handsets.
18 to 20 Android handsets are expected to launch by the end of 2009, Android is on the move.
Wikipedia tells us that it’s a mobile applications platform built on a Linux base. Google has insane amounts of money to throw at this. Maybe they will prove that pigs do fly, if propelled at a sufficient speed.
Android looks cool. I saw photos of it a couple months ago....about as cool as the Mac OS I still want but haven’t gotten yet because Macs are more expensive.
Android hopefully runs as good as it looks.
If it is Linux based, then it probably stands a good chance to succeed.
The big trip up for any OS is hardware compatability. The number of people that write hardware drivers for Linux is legion.
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