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Acer's Android-Based Netbook
Acer has announced at Computex 2009 that they will release a version of the popular Aspire One netbook configured with Google’s Android operating system.
Android is Google’s Linux-based operating system that was originally developed for smartphones.
What is interesting about this is that the first netbooks only ran on Linux. Then Microsoft woke up and virtually wiped out Linux-based netbooks by cutting the cost for XP licenses to near zero.
In recent weeks, there has been a lot of press around two new Linux-based operating systems. Google’s Andoid and Intel’s Moblin.
Although Acer’s first Andoid-based netbook will have an Intel Atom N270 CPU, the reason for a lot of the excitement surrounds netbooks in the wings that are not based on Intel chips.
There are a number of different netbooks in development that have CPUs based on ARM designs, like Nvidia’s Tegra that we highlighted a few days ago. ARM processors are currently used on many smartphones. These CPUs are attractive based on their low power consumption which provides long battery life.
Microsoft’s Windows operating systems will not run on ARM processors.
All this creates a real problem for Microsoft. The game plan for Microsoft is to migrate netbooks to the new Windows 7 operating system and to begin making money. Speculation is that their target is a $30 per netboook increase. That represents about a 10% price increase in the average netbook.
Microsoft will undoubtably respond in an effort to kill off this new competitive threat. Call me cynical, but they have not failed in the past, and there is no sign that this will play out any differently.
But, being a Linux fan, I’ll be cheering on the sideline for the underdogs.
