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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.
I agree. Women would never again buy Sybian devices if they could be sexually serviced by a full-sized android a la the Kubrick/Spielberg film A.I..
Oh, wait, you said Symbian. Oops.
"Anyone can take the Android platform and add code or download it to create a mobile device without restrictions," Google said in an e-mail. "We look forward to seeing what contributions are made and how an open platform spurs innovation."
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!"
Not really true, unfortunately. I know this is just anecdotal but I've a few friends who were just getting into linux and they had nothing but trouble with installing on recent laptops.
They're pretty smart folks and somewhat tech-savvy, so I can't imagine someone's mom or grandmother trying to do the same.
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.
What does android has that linux doesn't?
Google
"Our goal each year should be to increase the number of goals we set for ourselves!"
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.
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
I think that's more because Americans wanted cheaper laptops, not portable internet devices. The original concept of a netbook has been replaced with scaled down (physically and price-wise) laptops.
Americans don't have a problem with the variety of unfamiliar phone OSes out there, because nobody expects them to be like their big desktop computers. If we had the same view of netbooks, Linux would continue to dominate there.
http://www.mhall119.com
Huh? The EEE, the Cloudbook, the Wind, and most of the others were preinstalled Linux from the start, only adding preinstalled Windows as an option months after they came out. Are you implying that these were not usable?
Well, you can't get much more distant than that.