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Acer, the world's third biggest PC maker, on Tuesday said it would begin shipping the world's first mainstream notebook computer using Google's Android operating system in the third quarter of this year.
The move opens a new front in Google's battle with Microsoft by offering an alternative to its Windows XP operating system, which dominates the netbook market with a roughly 80 per cent market share.
Acer's move opens a new front in Google's battle with Microsoft
Microsoft charges about $20 per computer for the XP, analysts say, while Google does not charge for its Android system, which is based on the open-source Linux software.
Microsoft's next operating system, Windows 7, will be available on netbooks this autumn, but the company is still working out how stripped down that will be in comparison with the desktop version and how much it will charge.
The marriage of Acer's low-end Aspire One netbook with the Android operating system, originally designed for mobile phones, also reflects a continued blurring of the lines between smartphones and computers.
Acer's new notebook offering will run both the XP and Android operating systems and allows users to switch between the two. It would still be cheaper than its current Aspire One models, the company said. Acer declined to comment further on its pricing strategy for the new product.
Skytone, a Chinese maker, recently announced a pure Android netbook that has yet to ship. Dell, the second biggest computer maker, plans to introduce an Android product, according to a software developer that last month accidentally issued a press release announcing work on the product.
Industry leader Hewlett-Packard is still conducting tests, but is reluctant to plunge ahead for fear of reducing revenue per product even further, analysts said.
"Android is beginning to show some wings," said analyst Roger Kay of Endpoint Technologies Associates.
It would ask consumers to do unfamiliar things, but if it connected seamlessly with Google's web services for word processing and the like, it could have a major impact, he said.
Jim Wong, president of IT Products at Acer, said the main attraction of using the Android system was its fast start-up time. "No other operating system allows users to power up (the computer) in 18 seconds and power down in one second," he said.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
