Android netbooks on their way, likely by 2010
The image above shows a netbook Asus EEEPC 1000H running on Google's mobile operating system Android. Huh? You thought Android was for mobile phones, right? Well, as we've written before, Google is planning to use Android for any device — not just the mobile phones.
Context & Ripple Effects
Google's push to put Android beyond the phone had been building for over a year — from the 2007-era experiments running a Google-flavored Linux on devices like the Cloudbook UMPC, to this Asus Eee PC 1000H demo showing Android booting on a netbook. Within months, the first shipping Android netbooks appeared, validating the thesis that a phone OS could scale up to larger screens.
First-order effects
- Netbook makers like Asus gain a free, familiar OS alternative to Windows XP or Linux, letting them cut per-unit licensing costs on low-margin machines.
- Google extends its mobile distribution footprint onto laptops at essentially zero software cost, putting its services in front of users on a second screen category.
Second-order effects
- Microsoft faces pricing pressure on Windows for small laptops, since OEMs can now credibly ship Android instead — echoing the Linux-netbook threat of the era.
- The phone-versus-PC OS boundary blurs for developers and chipmakers, who must decide whether to target one Android codebase across form factors.
Third-order effects
- If one Google OS can span phones, netbooks, and beyond, laptop operating systems drift toward the app-store/ad-supported economics of mobile — a trajectory that eventually converges with ChromeOS and resurfaces in Google's 2026 unified Googlebook lineup merging ChromeOS and Android.
The trend: This is an early data point in operating systems breaking free of single device categories, culminating in converged platforms that treat phones, laptops, and tablets as one continuous ecosystem.