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Even as ChromeOS steals all the Google fanboy thunder, plans continue apace to put Google’s OTHER Operating System, Android, onto netbooks sooner rather than later.

According to DigiTimes, Acer will be releasing it’s already announced dual boot XP and Android Netbook next month (August). Android powered netbooks are also expected from Asus and MSi, but not until 2010.

The question of Android’s future was discussed by Google’s VP of Engineering Andy Rubin at a recent T-Mobile event to debut their second Android phone, the myTouch. According to the Wall Street Journal, Rubin had this to say about Google’s Tale of Two Operating Systems…

…Chrome OS isn’t a substitute for mobile operating systems like Android, which have to solve many problems unique to mobile phones, such as managing battery life and ensuring calls don’t drop as a user is moving between cell towers.

Chrome has a very Web-centric view of the world,” he said. “There are different problems to be solved in different categories of consumer products,” he went on. “You need different technology for different solutions.”

How this extends to netbooks isn’t terribly clear (battery life is relevant, call dropping is not), but I would expect that all netbook vendors are currently reevaluating any plans they had for Android post-2010 when the Chrome OS is ready to debut. If Rubin’s comments are Google gospel, we may be seeing ChromeOS becoming the Google option for netbooks and notebook PCs while Android runs on phones and other small devices, such as PMPs.

(Photo Credit: geeky-gadgets.com)

Zealot (469 Posts) - Website | Twitter | Facebook

By day a department manager and writer for a major network device vendor...by night Zealot stalks the mean magnetic streets, striking fear into the hearts of bandwidth abusers and theme park mascots. Zealot has been involved with mobile devices for more than a decade now, starting off with dumb phones, moving to PDAs and then to smartphones, notebooks and netbooks with the odd PMP thrown in. Most of his mobile time currently is spent on a Treo Pro, Zune HD, Thinkpad T61, Gigabyte M912M or a Hackintoshed Compaq Mini 704. He proudly groks the Geek community and considers himself a Neo Maxi Zune Dweebie (thanks Will Wheaton!).