They haven’t come right out and said it yet but there are definite signs that Hewlett Packard, the biggest PC maker in the world, might be considering using Google’s Android operating system on their computers in the near future.
All that the computer giant has said so far is that it has been evaluating Android to see if it would work well on their own computers but they haven’t actually said they would be shipping out computers powered by Android.
The most likely option for HP would be to use the open source operating system on a new line of HP Netbooks, which would make complete sense.
At the moment Android is a popular operating system for mobile phones but it’s no secret that Google is keen to expand the use of Android and has been working with many different PC makers to get their operating system onto Netbooks.
Having Android on Netbooks seems like an obvious course of action too as it would make it easier for users of Android powered phones to share information between devices.
Netbooks are now the fastest growing segment of the PC market and this isn’t likely to change in the near future, particularly with the current economic climate. Netbooks are portable, functional and don’t cost the earth to buy. Indeed, “good enough to use and cheap enough to lose” as the early techies used to say about Netbooks.
Netbooks usually come with either Microsoft XP or Linux operating systems preinstalled.
If HP goes ahead and uses Google’s Android, it would put Google right on course to become a major contender in the Netbook war and will give Microsoft a run for its money.
At the moment people are pretty familiar with Microsoft operating systems so Microsoft were able to sneak in and dominate the Netbook operating system market and have done so since they quickly licensed windows XP at a lower rate in order to grab a slice of the action. It was a smart move too.
According to IDC, nearly 5 million Netbooks were sold in the last quarter and Netbook sales are expected to reach 20 million units this year.
Google aren’t only interested in getting their operating system onto Netbooks though, true to form they have much broader plans than that and would like to see Android on other devices too such as television set top boxes and car navigation systems.
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