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Google's Android To Challenge Windows?
PL/SQL Guy writes "Search giant Google is set to offer its free Android mobile-phone operating system for computers, opening a new front in its rivalry with Microsoft by challenging the dominance of the company's Windows software. Acer Inc., the world's second-largest laptop maker, will release a low-cost notebook powered by Android next quarter, said Jim Wong, head of information-technology products at the Taipei-based company. Calvin Huang, an analyst at Daiwa Securities Group Inc, says that adoption of Android-based netbooks will likely eat into Windows' share of PC operating systems."
Meanwhile, notes reader Barence, Asus is continuing to distance itself from Android, saying it "isn't a priority."
Meanwhile, notes reader Barence, Asus is continuing to distance itself from Android, saying it "isn't a priority."
I think the article you wanted to link there was Asus distances itself from Android netbook.
That's odd considering the story we discussed yesterday in which Qualcomm showed an eee PC (an Asus product) running Android with an ARM processor. And in the Bloomberg article (which also mentions that), "Asustek said in February its engineers were trying to develop an Android-based netbook this year."
The comments of Jonathan Tsang, vice chairman of Asus, don't convince me. Actions speak louder than words. Hint: When you release an ARM Processor based chipset in a netbook, you're actually distancing yourself from Windows and x86 applications.
What he means to say is "everything's ready, just don't alarm our Redmond masters until we're sure the consumer likes Android."
My work here is dung.
Here we have a very interesting inversion of the typical Open vs Closed debate. Although Windows itself may be a closed source OS, it is actually a very open system. And although Android is built on layers of open source components, it is fundamentally a closed system (like iPhone).
The target audience for Android PCs would be one which needs a dedicated internet browsing device. Anything more would mean that they would be looking at Windows.
This strategy has been tried several times before. And it has failed every time. Linux has already been edged out of the netbook market by Windows, so it's going to be interesting to see how an even more crippled system could possibly compete.
It's not that the thing's 'ready to go', the problem still remains that the majority people currently using windows are use to windows and don't want to spend another 5 years learning a new operating system with new software. We really need to target the younger audiences and schools if we want to make progress. It's something that windows did early on, and something that worked very well.
"Our goal each year should be to increase the number of goals we set for ourselves!"
I forgot the most important part "for $99.95".
What does android has that linux doesn't?
Linux has more software than android and if we're talking about familiarity the linux desktop is closer to windows than android.
The android netbooks will be cheaper than the windows ones but, again, if that hasn't helped linux I don't see how it's going to help android.
I'd like to see the microsoft dominance in the os market broken as much as anyone but I don't have much hope this is going to do it.
The biggest challenge facing Windows is its size and hardware requirements - as phones get smarter and netbooks become more popular then people will become accustomed to having a 'proper' computer on them at all time- for many people with an iPhone this is already happening. Even Miyamoto (the Nintendo guy) was talking today about broadening the range of applications available for the DS so that gamers begin to take them everywhere and use them for everything. It doesn't really matter whether it's a Nintendo DS, an Apple iPhone, a Palm Pre, a Blackberry or a netbook running Android- the key is portability. Portability is The Next Big Thing and in this market Windows does not seem to have a very attractive offering - Windows Mobile only makes headlines when it's market share is overtaken by something else.
So personally I don't see Android as a specific challenge to Windows, I see Windows being challenged by a fundamental shift in computing - from the desktop to personal - and Windows biggest challenge in this area is probably itself and it's own bloated history.
Putting syrup in coffee is some form of blasphemy.
Why is everyone obsessed with the idea that Mother/Grandmother needs to be able to install Ubuntu? Seriously, my mother-in-law can't manage to navigate to a web page without help, I've had to put a link on the desktop to Google Mail. The one, only, big problem with Linux-based operating systems is commercial application and driver support. People want to be able to walk into a shop and buy something. They want to put the CD that came with their new digital camera into the drive and install the stuff that came with it because they think they got something free (even if it's rubbish). The early adopters of OS X had this problem, but now almost any device comes with OS X support and most of the important packages have OS X ports. Linux just isn't there yet in that department. One commercially-supported platform for developers to target, supported by a number of the bigger hardware companies, might just achieve that.
In what way is Android a closed system? Anyone can write Android apps. The API is fully open. Anyone can publish them to the Google ap store. Or you can just install them individually like any application for any OS.
I don't see how you can compare Android to the iPhone as both being closed. The iPhone is closed in every single way. Android in nearly none.
With Ubuntu now in a "just works" state on some hardware
There. Fixed that for you. Unfortunately, my own stats (and I have installed Ubuntu on lots of different hardware configurations) indicate that in only about 30% cases it just works with all the hardware that an average user will immediately notice to fail. Wireless, sound cards, video cards (missing 3d support and more), ACPI quirks... I think that the year of Linux on Desktop will never come, until we realize that we must not go the Microsoft Way - we must go the Apple Way, no matter how absurd as it may sound at first! And maybe Google is trying to do just that - make sure there are several distinct hardware configurations 100% supported by Android, instead of writing software to support everything invented by the mankind.
People want to be able to walk into a shop and buy something.
This is completely different than 'commercial application and driver support.' There is no value to be had in aggressively promoting Linux compatibility at the average retailer. There simply aren't enough customers/money to be made yet.
commercial application and driver support
I am dog tired of hearing this bit of disinformation. Many distros provide excellent support. And I don't mean forums. I mean talking to a warm body on the phone that can actually help.
Singling out Linux as having weak driver support is another red herring. Perhaps you are wise and wait many years before switching to a new Microsoft OS. I promise you, those early Microsoft adopters go through a world of hurt with buggy drivers. Mac users do too, only to a lesser extent.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
It seems to me that this is all part of the next wave of computing devices. The iPhone showed that portable computing device could be easy to use and fulfill a number of functions including cell phone, internet browser, applications platform and media player. It's not so much a smart phone as it is a computer. Google followed with Android. Nokia and RIM are now inspired to try to make their smartphone operating systems work the same way. They won't. They are going to have to adopt Android or develop new operating systems (Linux-based most likely) if they want to compete for the long term.
The next step (this new wave) is to use the operating system developed for iPhone type devices on larger form factors better suited for more general purpose computing. The rumored Apple tablet and what is being announced here are just that. The approach of trying to fit a full desktop operating system on crapped-down hardware that conforms to a common PC form factor yielded netbooks. If you are used to a full blown laptop netbooks are very unsatisfying. Yet the need for a less expensive, useful and durable device with excellent battery life remains. I think that is what these new devices are trying to address and it makes sense to me that they are more likely to be successful.
Microsoft, watch out. The growth in the computing market will be devices like these, not general purpose computers - desktops and laptops. These devices will be more reliant on browser based RIA apps (e.g. Javascript & HTML5) and web services than on native applications. General purpose PCs will still be around in large but stagnant numbers. If I'm making these more specialized devices, why would I pay for an operating system when I can get one for free? If the browser I put on my device meets all the requisite standards, you can no longer offer me the advantage of lot's of applications.
But Microsoft is not stupid. The new Zune HD shows me that at least they are thinking about this market and how to compete in it.
Very often, people confuse simple with simplistic. The nuance is lost on most. - Clement Mok
Remember Firefox? Once it reached a 10% market share most websites started abandoning MSFT's walled garden and adopt standards. Same way if enough people migrate to Google docs, Open Office, Android etc etc, it will nail MSFT's underhanded tactics. If 10% of the people are using OpenOffice, they will interact with some 20% of the MsOffice market, and start demanding smooth file transfers. If 10% of the people use Android net book to take a quick look at MsOffice powerpoint it will force MSFT to at least allow a standard compliant export or standard compliant view only mode.
That is all it takes to start shaking the monopoly. Once MSFT market share in Office and OS starts to dip below 80% it will get into a avalanche mode and drop to 40% in just 4 or 5 years.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Many times beaten horse...
Don't freeze hardware.
Just freeze API/ABI and commercial developers will come in droves (assuming the Linux community really wants commercial developers' support).
I currently do an embedded Linux project for Atom-based board.
It is a nightmare to select a kernel that supports all features of my board.
The drivers appear and disappear between kernel releases.
Their names and placements change between releases.
Because of API changes, they are often uncompilable between releases without major hacking.
With frozen API/ABI I would grub a driver from a different release and be done.
I am contemplating an idea to port our project to a different OS from Linux staring from the next release.
"What does android has that linux doesn't?"
Unity: as opposed to the fragmentation of Linux. Linux has ~1% of the desktop market and that is divided into a hundred fragments. I say this as someone who uses RH at work and Ubuntu at home (secondary boot to windows). I am not going to get into a back and forth over the benefit of the freedom to fork new things. Yep thats nice, but with the utter fragmentation reducing Linux to the ghetto forever, it has IMO relegated it to the backwaters forever.
Name recognition: To stand out from the Linux rabble.
Money: to advertise/fix issue/build whatever they need to make it work...
From all of the above you get buy in, trust, investment.
I'd love to replace my Ubuntu boot with Android if it ever heads in that direction.
If it looks like a portable computer (laptop/netbook), people will expect to see Windows on it, and the vast majority of them will run away if it doesn't have it.
Alternative OSs have a chance on things that have the same compute power as a portable computer, but don't look like them.
Android/Linux/OS X on smartphones or similar things will sell.
I predict that whatever Apple does with all those 10" screens it it rumored to be buying, it won't look like a netbook.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
Who didn't see this coming? But I think the smarter route is to start it as purely a mobile (smartphone/netbook) OS, work out the kinks and extend it THEN break it out as a full fledged OS. You'd hit the ground running, people already familiar with it, apps developed for it, etc. Then crush Microsoft's grapes.
http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
I just realised a few days ago that there was something wrong with the desktop OS market: you have a declining giant which held until now pretty much 98% of its market (non-Mac PC market), a strong but much smaller giant which is much more limited in how it can eat the big declining giant because he requires buying a whole new machine (and doesn't even cover all the ranges of machines, i.e. hardly any low end machines), and the rest, which is the tiny Linux and BSD guys who can't do much because well, none of them are anywhere near being giants.
So I thought something is missing, cause if the big giant is declining fast, then another giant has to help him lose its market share. Apple can only do it in a very limited manner, and even if desktop Linux was ready as a product it just isn't pushed into the desktop OS market by a giant.
And there comes Google and its Android platform. If they are actually going for the desktop market, and if they do things right, then I believe that within a few years they'll manage to relieve Microsoft from a portion of their desktop OS share that we'd consider quite significant by our current standards (understand 5-10% in 5 years), and in the long term they may turn out to be the ones who break the Windows' image of being the big OS you can't do without.
That's a huge challenge, but the thing about Google is, they're fucking huge now, but their biggest thing is still by far their web searching, and they're as big as one can be there, so I think they need something else that is huge to get into. Taking a shot at replacing Windows on desktops/laptops/netbooks seems like a logical choice.
You just got troll'd!
These smartphone touch based OSs like Android and iPhoneOS bode well for a market segment that just never took off... Tablet Computing.
Bill Gates was a big believer in the Tablet form factor, but it never took off because it used the Windows UI (Start Bar, icons, windows), AND because it basically requires the use of a stylus. Now Bill Gates may be the kind of guy who has his shit together enough to not lose his stylus constantly, but a lot of the rest of us do not. If there is one thing you have to give Apple credit for is realizing that "nobody likes a stylus" and building an OS around touch.
A scaled up iTouch/Android/WebOS style interface on a tablet sized device sounds pretty cool to me. And if you really want a stylus, it should be and optional device, not the default method of input.
Then we *have* defined the game we're going to play ourselves. It just doesn't involve total desktop dominance. The problem is that nobody will really admit this. Linux is about choice and freedom first, and development will proceed in that fashion for the forseeable future because that has value to the people who actually develop Linux.
Canonical can choose to play a different game with Ubuntu (which I love, btw, and my entire team has it installed on our development computers). But Linux is not Canonical. If I were Canonical, playing the game Apple is playing might actually help a lot - narrowly define the hardware. As a commercial entity, they can choose to go that route.
Linux is not a commercial entity, it's more like a community with a kernel, and the community is already playing the game it wants to play.
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
You've obviously never done customer support or you'd realize how important consistency and expected functionality is.
Just because YOU don't have a problem with different OSes and all their quirks doesn't mean that the rest of the world wants to learn how to use something new just to satisfy some moral conviction you have to OSS. Most of us have better things to do than extol the virtues of OSS without having a clue as to what making a pleasant user experience is.
Just because you weren't around when they complained or wasted time getting used to the changes doesn't mean it didn't happen. Just because you weren't perceptive enough to notice the time it took yourself to get used to the changes doesn't mean it didn't happen.
You're inability to notice these things doesn't mean they don't exist anymore than wrapping your head in a towel actually gets rid of scary monsters. Just saying it doesn't actually make it true, even if you post it to slashdot.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
There is such a misunderstanding of what is going on with netbooks. There are two markets developing, and they could not be more different. The most important difference is who the customer really is:
Consumers (meaning you and me) are buying cheap, small, wimpy laptops. This is the market that is going crazy right now as people are buying $279 netbooks instead of $500 laptops. (Windows is a plus here as it protects the buyer's investment in legacy software). For most netbook buyers, it's either a compliment to their desktop or it is the primary machine for a non power user. Linux is important in this market because MS was forced to allow XP to be sold as Vista was too heavy, and will continue to be too heavy. In fact, MS had end of lifed XP before allowing netbook manufacturers to distribute with their computers.
- and -
Cell phone carriers are buying connected netbooks. Cell carriers want to sell these inexpensive netbooks locked on to their network. It's a way to sell another connection to you for $50/month using their traditional loss leader strategy (have a $250 phone for free, just pay us $50/month for two years). Windows is a liability here as it takes a lot more end user support than a purpose built environment like Android. Windows also just can't be locked down like Android either (this is considered good. Android is not itself a consumer product, but Android applications are). Most software is going to be either small applications that are installed on the netbook or bigger ones that are provided via browser (Google Apps). Android is built to deliver internet based applications and distribute applications in a way that limits the need for technical support. In other words: it's amazingly easy to use for end users and doesn't break in ways that reqire support calls. It also can be locked down to the carrier's needs (doing so may limit what Google software may be shipped with the device).
-- $G