HP ponders Android netbook

 

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By Reuters

Posted on 1 Apr 2009 at 08:44

HP has admitted it's looking at employing Android in its next generation of netbooks, though it stopped short of committing itself to the operating system.

The Wall Street Journal claims HP is testing Android on netbooks, though Satjiv Chahil, the vice president of HP's PC division refused to confirm the rumour: "We want to assess the capability Android may have for the computer and communications industries, and so we are studying it."

An official HP spokeswoman offered a similar response: "We want to understand all of the OS choices in the marketplace that might be used by our competitors, or that might possibly be of value to our customers too."

The open-source Android operating system is currently being used in smartphones but has been designed to support all kinds of devices. This recently led analysis firm Ovum to suggest it could feature in a new category of sub-$200 netbooks.

Microsoft has already confirmed that it's bracing itself for the entrance of Android into the laptop market, although no PC maker has publicly committed to it.

In an attempt to combat this, Microsoft will sell a version of its forthcoming Windows 7 operating system specially tailored for netbooks.

In January, the software developer partly blamed netbooks for weaker-than-expected quarterly profits. Analysts say the company makes only half as much on its netbook software as it does for a standard notebook.

Analysts estimate that global shipments of netbooks will be between 20 million and 30 million units in 2009.