From today's Globe and Mail comes news that Acer, the world's third largest computer maker, will begin shipping its netbooks with Google's free OS, Android. Asus, whose eee launched the netbook revolution, is also said to have similar plans.Based on the linux kernel, Android will offer yet another alternative for a rapidly expanding cadre of netbook users -- a market slated to expand by 70% this year in the face of both recession and a saturated computer market.
Canonical's Ubuntu already has a netbook optimized linux OS and the Intel backed Moblin project, which I have written about previously, is in beta, with final release presumably scheduled in the near future.
This presents a particularly gloomy picture for Microsoft, whose Windows 7 is to be released this fall and who planned to capture this market with a netbook optimized version of the OS. Is it time to go short on Microsoft?
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