Microsoft foresees netbook-specific flavor of Google’s Android OS
Posted in: Netbook, eeepc, software, windows, tags: android, asus, google, google android, Linux, microsoft, netbook os, open source, steve ballmer
Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer recently spoke about his company’s plans for the future, and he quite nonchalantly revealed that they’re waiting for Google to release a netbook version of their currently for-smartphones-only Android mobile OS. Google’s Android already competes with Windows Mobile in the worldwide smartphone market, and if this happens, then the two companies will have yet another arena to fight each other to the death in. At the moment, Windows XP has succeeded in wiping out Linux from the netbook space little by little, but Android, although also open-source, is expected to be a different story. Google probably didn’t have making a netbook version of its OS in mind when it started out on Android, but companies like Asus have already confirmed that products with this open source operating system are already in the pipeline.
Via Guardian
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“Windows XP has succeeded in wiping out Linux from the netbook space little by little” Oh really? Mr Ballmer get your facts straight.
If you look at the numbers you’ll see that linux use on personal PCs exploded with netbooks (linux has been strong on servers for a very long time).
If you want to talk about wiping out, it’s more fair to say that netbooks wiped out Vista. XP was brought back from the dead to keep Microsoft in the game and seven rushed out to cover for Vista’s failure.
And now Microsoft probably has to face Android too.
Even with Microsoft virtually giving away XP, so as to stop people trying, and liking Linux, Linux is still accounting for a third of netbooks. Does not seem like a wipe out to me.