Many people are dying to get Google’s Android operating system onto their netbooks – Google’s OS running on the miniscule computers seems like a match made in computing heaven (or at least better than the bloated Windows or unusable (for newbies) Linux. And Android netbooks are certainly coming soon. Dell, for example, is planning to release their own Android-equipped device. But Google CEO Eric Schmidt has his eye on another prize: the cloud.
At Google’s Press Event earlier today Schmidt wasn’t interested in talking about Android on netbooks. “We have no announcements on that,” he said.
But he then talked about Netbooks passionately, saying the the unit numbers were becoming material and that use cases were “consistent with the cloud computing model” that Google is focusing on with Google Docs, Gmail and other services. “Keep an eye on this space,” he said, suggesting but not outright saying that Google may have announcements around Netbooks soon. (and Google I/O is soon, by the way).
I’m looking forward to his announcement. I think many in this industry will be surprised.
“Many people are dying to get Google’s Android operating system onto their netbooks”
-> Those “many people” are as naïve & stupid as those who love the actual Windows monopoly on the PC platform.
Android on Laptops is genious and intelligent people are eager to see it happen.
Reasons are:
1. Android laptops will be the cheapest in the world, starting at $99 for the 7″ screen models cause Android can be used on the cheapest and most optimized embedded laptop systems ever made.
2. Android laptops will have over 20 hours of battery life cause that is the main feature of embedded laptop systems. They use much less power.
3. Google Chrome on Android is going to be about all that people need. Then add to that a bunch of very basic applications. But don’t think the $99 Android laptop will not be able to achieve very powerful things. The Could can host your video editing/encoding needs, the Cloud can process your photo and 3D renderings, the cloud can even stream the most powerful 3D games to your laptop if that is what you like. The Cloud can host all your large files (see the upcoming Google Drive).
I could go on. The morons are the ones that use a Mac. (just joking)
“The morons are the ones that use a Mac”
I second that!
first!!!
fail
More like Second!!!
Wouldn’t it be a good idea for Google to extend the Android apps market to netbooks with the Android OS? I don’t know if people want iphone type apps on their netbooks, but it could really broaden the market for them beyond cell phones.
LOL, Android was forgotten about long ago!
Android on netbooks has never made any sense. You can’t drag one application window over another with Android — it’s basically worthless in a desktop environment. In fact, I’m pretty sure Android’s awful performance on netbooks is going to make the OS look bad in general, which is why goog is downplaying it.
Yeah, it should stick with what it’s good at, mobile devices!
Why do you want to drag windows on top of each other? Nobody does that animore. I run my Chrome in one full screen window and have all my many tabs in that. Android on a $99 laptop will support that just as good as on your $1500 Apple laptop.
What about chrome for linux? It would be very easy to use that as a jumping off point for google’s cloud services.
Chrome for linux is available I think, Beta only so far. But it will surely be available for Android laptops.
does Googl plan on dropping the name Android or license and share royalties? can Android withstand the trademark stress test? that is the big android question.
MyLocator.mobi – find yourself
That question is just pure bogus and FUD.
Linux is unusable for newebies? I’m not sure which Linux you’re using.
Its funny because Eric Schmidt doesn’t seem to know what hes talking about.
Ubuntu (specially the netbook remix) is very “noob friendly” as are a full spectrum of distributions.
Also: Android is based off linux (and therefore technically “is” linux) and cloud services can be added to the OS, it could even be added to windows.
Has Schmidt even been near any of his company’s products?
Hum hum. This article was written by Jason Kincaid, not by Eric Schmidt, and that was not a quote from him either.
Google simply didn’t have anything to announce yet about Android on laptops when asked the question. But they probably will have Android on laptops to display at at Computex June 2nd in Taiwan or at Google I/O May 27th.
Please read the f****king article before you comment!
Agree with Hauser, never understood the juice Android to netbook was getting. Its a really cool mobile phone/MID OS, but would lose a lot about what makes it cool as a netbook.
yeah, i can’t imagine google releasing anything like this unless it’s top notch and way above the competition, which, in this case, is open source operating systems.
let’s just use ubuntu (or even XP) on the netbooks – i can’t imagine android would have really anything really substantial to offer that’s not in ubuntu
cloud computing has already been proven to be too expensive and not good enough for businesses.
i’m tired of hearing about google trying to be what it was, or be something like IBM; stick to search an fire all the retards you hired. Make them comeback with business ideas; give’m a 100K to implement it, if it flies, invest.
> cloud computing has already been proven to be too expensive and not good enough for businesses.
And always will be? Technology tends to get cheaper and better over time.
After all, I’m old enough to remember them saying the same thing about PCs.
i got Five (euros bitch) on Arringtons tech, base, crunch, whatever pad.
Is anybody else here as worried as I am about an EMP burst near a Google Data center? Someone should do a “stress test” on Global commerce to estimate the damage done if Google were unable to deliver search results and E-mail for a week. Google is awesome, but this rush to the cloud is making me have nightmares of my utility company sending me a monthly bill with a flat rate subscription fee for “general computing”, plus a zillion surcharges. Late on your bill? Good luck getting your records.
Note I’m a big fan of cloud computing ever since Amazon started pushing theirs. I just would like to see more discussion on security and robust cross-company back up solutions; perhaps something like a consortium of independent data redundancy and recovery.
“It’s cloud’s illusions I recall, I really don’t know clouds, at all” — Joni Mitchellto
if someone was dumb enough to store critical documents on “the cloud’ and not take precautions to back it up, then they deserve the headache this disaster would cause.
furthermore google with its own redundancy has a better chance of withstanding a failure than your personal ISP…
“Many people are dying to get Google’s Android operating system onto their netbooks”
Oh my! I want to see the face of those guys… why the don’t just install Linux? Don’t know if this article is another encrypted press release.
“Many people are dying to get Google’s Android operating system onto their netbooks.” Are they? Didn’t we hear that about getting Android on their phones? Where are the phones? Is the luster wearing off of Google because of the perception that they start too much and don’t complete enough?
Where are the phones? Keep in mind that it wasn’t until this month that virtual keyboards were available on Android; that meant any Android handset designs that didn’t include a physical keyboard had to wait. Ask the question again six months from now.
And personally, I’d love to get my hands on an Android netbook.
I think Google is simply trying to do too many things and they are not doing many of them very well. Maybe all the smart people left and started their own companies.
Wow, a bit too late Google. We do this now. We even have some partnerships under way with netbook makers. Check out the new UI we are also working on. http://blog.blo...gtronix.com/488
I have been talking about this since 1999 with SUN Micro, but Wifi/EDGE/3G and the hardware were not there and the cost of it was way too much. We were a bit too early for it again.
OK, Eric, don’t say I did not tell you about this in Davos back in 2004
Davos, 2005 @ the Google party sorry
Oracle has secured a very solid position with the merger with Sun on the high end segment – I presume with Android OS, Microsoft should be tightening their belts.
There was a time when just thinking of a computer without Microsoft products sound ridiculous. With the cloud architecture and open source I think there is shift in the trend, people are trying out new products/services.
cloud computing has already been proven to be too expensive and not good enough for businesses
Cloud computing is the future. I don’t even need outlook. In terms of businesses, if you have >300 people cloud app are a cheap way to go and will only improve.
MSFT has huge issues now:
–Ubuntu + OpenOffice + Firefox for netbook users who want the current, full desktop experience. $0 cost for hardware manufacturers vs. let’s say $50 for Windows 7 (crippled, not counting cost of Office). Price delta looks pretty big to consumers if it is $299 vs. $349, or (god forbid) $199 vs. $249.
–Android + cloud for users who do not want current desktop experience. Same cost/pricing as point above.
–MySQL + OpenOffice + “New Oracle Share/Performance Point” tool for small and medium businesses that do not want to pay for SQL Server + Office + Share/Performance Point tools. OK this may not happen, but methinks Larry might just do it simply because he “loves” MSFT so much. Oh, it is also a pretty good strategy for upselling to Oracle once those SMBs grow into it.
–Apple siphoning off a significant percentage of high-margin (> $1000) portables and desktops. Apple can simply do more with their 100% ownership of all things hware + sware.
–Epic fail for Windows Mobile (despite current shipping volumes). They deserve this, though, as they had ample opportunity, and many years to do something right, other than simply foist Windows onto devices ill-suited to it.
MSFT may find itself with a soon-to-be threatened monopoly (come on Larry) as OS provider to the enterprise. A good business, but shareholders **WILL NOT** like the upside growth potential.
I’ve still got 50 shares to divest, so I am hoping for big things from Windows 7. Fortunately, divested everything else at about $35 (thank god).
Actually, the Android netbook is $100 cheaper than the Ubuntu netbook, cause Android runs on ARM Netbooks which are much cheaper to manufacture. The biggest cost in an Android netbook is the screen, the rest is just electronic peanuts.
Umm Google has never really invested money in for Android for notebooks. They made android for cellphones and others are porting this over to notebooks, meaning they did not waste much resources there. This is what open source is all about.
Additionally if you read the post accurately, Eric Shmidt never mentioned about linux not being noob-friendly. They were merely comments added by the author..
“sources tell me, is that Google is taking this challenge seriously, in essence rewriting the Android OS almost from scratch to make it much richer”
http://www.pcma...,2345100,00.asp
it is my understanding that android was planned from the beginning to be as cross-platform as possible, and create a unifying operating system for all devices.
if they are rewriting the whole OS to incorporate netbooks it’s not necessarily because it wasn’t planned, it’s more likely that they’re just now getting around to doing it and it was planned all along
They are probably not rewriting it from scratch, but tweaking it a lot so it will be best on higher resolution screens of Laptops that are not necessarily touchscreens, with a mouse, perhaps special recommended keyboard shortcuts.
Linux on notebooks are even easier to use than Micrsoft Windows XP on notebooks.
Everything just works fine out of the box!
Just point and click and the application starts working. OpenOffice is great.
Yeah, Linux is SO hard for beginners. A 25 second boot time, enter your password, and clicking the Firefox icon to use your “magic cloud applications”. Your WEB applications are easier, safer, slicker (unbeatable desktop graphics) and quicker on Linux, on any platform. The author needs to go download an Ubuntu live CD. This is a tech site, you should be a little more up to date on usability. It’s not like new users have to compile their own kernel modules or use the CLI (command line, not a fancy “cloud” word).
For crying out loud, they’re giving third world kids living in mud huts laptops running Linux! Some of them may not have turned on a lightbulb!
Stop taking pot shots at Linux when your article didn’t even talk about the OS. Gmail works on my Blackberry… Has nothing to do with the OS. It’s the magic cloud fairy dust…
Android is Linux. Linux is easy. As for linux clould. Click on the fox, browse internet, done. Plus Linux has easy prism integration.
I was wondering if somebody could help me with a school project. I am in a MA in industrial design, and I am redesigning the concept of the “netbook.” I was wondering if the OS, the files and the applications are in the cloud. Will the the cost of the netbook go down or will it be more expensive for the company that makes the netbook?
you can’t really run the OS in the cloud, i mean, the basic thing that boots up and starts transmitting to the ethernet or wifi would have to be hardglued to the machine no matter what.
as far as basic applications go, you’re going to want a suite of rudimentary things on all netbooks. browser for sure, something that can handle straight display of basic video files (flash,quicktime,etc). maybe a compression util ala winrar/winzip. an mp3 player
if you don’t include them in the OS then you at least have to create an API so that third party developers can make them. so i don’t see how it saves that much on costs