Will Google Android wreck Ubuntu?

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I think we're all forgetting something here...

I'm a strong supporter (and user) of both Ubuntu on the desktop (and server) and Android on the smartphone (and hopefully down-market as well). But this whole idea surrounding Android on netbooks (which is an 'Ubuntu area' IMO) falls apart as soon as you forget the hype and actually think about how it'd really work.

For a start, where's the office suite? Most people sure don't write full reports on their netbooks (except in the education sector), but they're great for editing a few lines, typing up some notes, preparing a presentation, tweaking a presentation, etc.

On Ubuntu (and Linux in general) we have a full office suite, OpenOffice.org. All Android has is a few commercial viewers and basic editors for MS' binary formats.

Additionally what about Flash? VoIP? a desktop oriented browser (the Android browser in its 'G1 state would be horrible with keyboard and mouse)? Decent AV codec support? WINE? The list goes on.

So to sum up, I'm a big supporter of Android on the phone, and I think by taking the multi-manufacturer approach, it can very quickly eradicate Apple's large market-share, but I just don't think it's suitable for netbooks, or can be made so overnight.

NB: Firefox, OpenOffice.org, VoIP clients etc, cannot just be ported over, as the applications need to be written in a compatible type of Java to run properly on Android (which the aforementioned are not; not to mention needing whole new UIs) (although apparently there may be some VM stuff possible for other languages).

Posted by: rfdparker2002   Posted on: 04/01/09  (Edited: 04/01/2009 @ 09:52) You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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