Android Netbooks Coming From Acer and ASUSTeK

Android, the open-source operating system from Google, is now in the ring against the heavyweight champion for computers, Microsoft Windows. In the latest round Tuesday, laptop makers Acer and ASUSTeK Computer said they will release netbooks with Android later this year.

The announcements were made at Computex, a huge computer trade show now taking place in Taiwan.

These moves follow the successful launch of an Android-based smartphone, the T-Mobile G1, last October. This past weekend, Qualcomm said it's expanding its Snapdragon chipset for a new category called smartbooks, which will also run Android. Other Android-based devices have also been announced for release later this year.

'Driver for Your Printer?'

Of course, also coming later this year, or early in 2010, is the latest incarnation of Microsoft's operating system, Windows 7. Some observers have speculated that the growth of the Linux-based Android and other non-Windows operating systems could pressure Microsoft to speed up Windows 7's final release, as well as possibly reduce the price.

Acer's Aspire One netbook will reportedly cost less than the Windows XP equivalent and, as the third-largest maker of PCs in the world, Acer's adoption of Android is notable.

Avi Greengart, an analyst with industry research firm Current Analysis, said the essential problem of any Linux OS competing against Windows is simply that "consumers prefer Windows." He pointed out that Android, which was initially targeted for smartphones, has "almost no programs" that could begin to compete with Microsoft Office and other common applications.

But, Greengart noted, it's not just applications. "Let's say you want to print" using an Android-based computer, he said. "Is there a driver for your printer?"

'Long Way to Go'

Greengart said Android is doing well in the smartphone market, with more than a million G1 phones sold by T-Mobile in the U.S. Because of the Google brand name, he added, the OS might have a "better shot over time" of bridging the gap it now has in the software ecosystem.

Michael Gartenberg, a vice president at Interpret, said "we've got a long way to go before we're going to see Android as a rival to Windows."

Netbooks, he said, are seen as a replacement or complement to laptops and, for that role, it needs the office applications that run on the dominant OS, Windows. "The whole Android-on-netbooks story doesn't look particularly promising right now," he said, adding that the big question is what vendors will do to change that.

Some observers have noted that Linux on netbooks has been slow to catch on because of the different versions, or distributions, but Android could coalesce into the primary Linux choice. There's no doubt, Gartenberg said, that "Android is the most important Linux distribution out there" for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that Google is behind it.